How garbage poses threat to flights

he heaps of garbage and filth dumped just beyond the airfield of Gannavaram airport are a favourite hunting ground for kites, crows and quails. On any given day, it’s normal to see crows and kites pick up their choice morsels, glide over to the runway and enjoy their meal on the tarmac.

Flight and ground staff have their hands full trying to contend with the bird menace. Bird hits have grounded some aircraft and airlines are hard put to it to manage their schedules. A number of villages, Kesarapalli, Ajjampudi, Gannavaram and surrounding areas, have been using the fringe of the airport as their dumping ground, attracting birds as to a magnet.

Drive into any of these villages and you see waste material dumped in the open place adjoining the compound wall of the runway. Strewn plastic covers, food items and used paper plates are piled up. The situation is worse at VNR College near the airport where mounds of garbage are dumped right next to the compound wall.

Local butchers’ apathetic attitude to properly disposing of their offal is adding to the woes of airport officials. On July 22, passengers underwent tense moments when a 67-seater Air Costa flight bound to Chennai made an emergency landing minutes after it took off from Gannavaram. The pilots decided to make an emergency landing after a bird got sucked into its engine. The incident caused a Rs.1 crore loss to the airliner as engineers had to be called in from Delhi to repair the craft.

Gannavaram airport director M. Rajkishore said flights stick to airspace based on instructions from the air traffic controller whereas birds fly naturally. “The birds’ flight path depends on attractions such as food and nesting. As villagers are dumping foodstuffs openly near the airport, birds flock there,” he said.

According to him, the airport staff patrol the fringe in a jeep and open fire with an air-gun to drive away birds. Bursting firecrackers is another way adopted on the runway to disperse birds. “We are able to control the menace inside the airfield but the problem is with the shops and villagers that are dumping waste material outside the airport,” he said.

Passengers counted tense moments when a 67-seater Air Costa flight made an emergency landing owing to bird scare minutes after it took off from Gannavaram recently