A bird that hit an aircraft engine delayed a Finnair leisure flight from Helsinki to Thailand’s Phuket at the intermediate landing site in India’s Ahmadabad on Wednesday.
The unlucky winged creature hit the Boeing 757's number two engine during the landing phase. The landing itself went as normal and presented no danger to the passengers.
The aircraft’s 225 Finnmatkat travel agency holidaymakers had to wait until Thursday morning Finnish time before they were able to continue their journey to the final destination of Phuket.
For the duration of the delay they were accommodated in local hotels in Ahmadabad.
A reserve plane from Helsinki took off for India at around two o’clock in the afternoon.
Finnmatkat head of information Anu-Eveliina Mattila told Helsingin Sanomat that the agency would inform the passengers of the situation through text messages.
It is believed that a flock of geese crossing the flight path of US Airways Flight 1549 from New York's LaGuardia for Charlotte, N.C. last Thursday was also the cause of the plane’s much-publicised emergency landing into the Hudson River five minutes after takeoff.
Some of the geese are believed to have been sucked into the Airbus A320’s two engines, causing them to fail simultaneously. Amazingly, the accident caused only minor injuries to a few passengers and wet feet for many.
Bird strikes are not an uncommon problem on landing and takeoff, and pilots are perfectly well equipped to bring a commercial jetliner down safely on one engine, but the loss of both engines is both extremely rare and a good deal more worrying.
