The Malaysian Insight

Bird strikes are a constant hazard for the airline industry, causing flight diversions and groundings, as in the case of AirAsia X flight D7207 which was forced to land in Brisbane yesterday.

But Malaysian airports thankfully have a low rate of such incidences compared to other airports and there are several measures airport authorities take to prevent them as much as humanly possible, pilots and an airport operation official told The Malaysian Insight.

Forced landings are a standard procedure in a bird strike and pilots are trained for it, said pilot Ian Augustin, 42, who has 20 years of experience flying helicopters and commercial planes.

“There are a few measures that we normally take. One is to gather information on bird migration periods, taking note of the hotspots of bird flocking areas. Then, we try to avoid those places altogether,” Augustin told The Malaysian Insight.

If a bird flies directly into an engine, Augustin said most, if not all, flight protocols will require a plane to be grounded or land.

“(It will) either cause the engine to still give power or to have no power straight away, so we have to land as soon as possible.”

Pilots are also required to read the Notice to Airmen (NOTAMs) before every flight to note the possible hazards before a particular flight.

“More often than not, the birds are the ones that will try to avoid us,” said Augustin, adding that bird strikes are usually rare in Malaysia compared to other countries.

The chances of a bird strike happening to a pilot is pure bad luck, said another commercial pilot, Abang Mohd Badrel, 46, from SabahAir, who has 25 years of experience.

He said it was rare for Malaysian pilots to encounter bird strikes and in SabahAir’s case, the airline’s Standard Operating Procedure is to maintain course in case it sights a bird in front.

“Here the bird problem is not so bad. There is more bird activity over other places like the African continent and the southern part of United States, so pilots have to look out when flying there.

“In case we see a bird coming head on, our SOP states that we maintain our course, we don’t try to avoid them because the birds are also avoiding us, so if we try to avoid each other then we will hit each other. In most cases, nothing will happen.

“And you can’t flash lights to them like when you do in a car, they might get attracted to the source and worse things will happen,” Badrel said.

The standard emergency drill in the event of a bird strike is to ground the plane, including contacting the nearest air traffic control tower to inform them of the event and then to land the aircraft and make a report within 24 hours, he added.

Cheng Ling Perng, Senior Manager of Aerodrome Safety at Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB), said the Kuala Lumpur International Airport experienced about 30 bird strikes in a year. Singapore’s Changi Airport, meanwhile, being in the path of migratory birds, had around at worst, 300 cases a year.

Cheng said bird strikes should not be blamed on airlines or the airport as bird activity was not within their control.

Cheng, who has more than 40 years of experience and is in charge of airport compliance and standards certification, said airport operators do meet with wildlife authorities on ways to deal with the presence of birds in and around airports.

“We have coordination meetings, courses, and people from the wildlife department and ornithologists to come in to help us at the airport to tell us about bird species and what they feed on,” he said.

Information like that is important in maintaining the grounds, runway and surroundings of an airport. For example, long grass produces seeds that attracts certain birds eyed by snakes, which in turn attract eagles.

“All these (creatures) in an airfield can be hazards to the aircraft,” Cheng said. As a result, airport staff have to maintain the grass by runways at a certain height and there are also certain species of grass that cannot be grown.

Airport authorities also work with other regulatory bodies outside the airport, such as town council planners, to ensure that development like birds’ nest farms are not located within 20 kilometres of an airfield.

“Other prevention methods include managing pesticide use, nettings, artificial bird predator sounds, bells, cages and wildlife hazard management plans,” Cheng said.

Deputy Group Head of Communications at AirAsia, Yow Hong Chieh, however, told The Malaysian Insight bird strikes were “more of the responsibility of the airport than the airline because they (airports) are supposed to do wildlife management, to ensure that wildlife is not where it’s not supposed to be.”

An AirAsia X flight with 345 passengers from Coolangatta in Australia’s Gold Coast had to be diverted to Brisbane to land after a suspected bird strike to its starboard engine soon after take off yesterday.

According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau’s (ATSB) statistics on wildlife strikes from 2006 to 2015, the number of bird strikes has increased from 1,234 in 2006 to 1,977 in 2015.

Coolangatta, which is in Queensland Australia, also saw an increase in bird strikes from 396 in 2006, to 657 in 2015. This is among the highest number of bird strike compared to other Australian states.

A large percentage of bird strikes, according to the ATSB report, involved the damage of one engine. The report also included other wildlife strikes of insects and non-flying animal strikes. – July 4, 2017.