The incident of an Oman Air Boeing 737 Max 8 at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on Sunday has highlighted the “persisting” threat of bird strikes to airliners and passengers.

According to an airport insider, the bird strike occurred when the aircraft inbound from Muscat made its final landing approach at around 7.30 a.m. The authorities grounded the aircraft and moved it to service bay 45 for maintenance.

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation had given civic authorities an ultimatum: a deadline for the scientific disposal of slaughter waste within a four-square-kilometre radius of the international airport. 

Airport authorities report that regulators raise concerns if more than one bird strike occurs for every ten thousand landings or takeoffs, placing the respective airport in the bird strike threat zone.

Plane spotters associated with the Plane Spotters Kerala (PSK), a niche group of aviation enthusiasts who video record and photograph landings and takeoffs from the perimeter of the expansive airport, say by a rough estimate, aircraft face more than 10 bird strike threats over Thiruvananthapuram monthly.

Civic authorities say the profusion of slaughterhouses around the airport’s perimeter and unscientific and open disposal of slaughter waste worsened the bird strike threat.

Saifuddin Haji, who campaigns against unscientific waste disposal in the airport’s vicinity, says illegal waste dumping by outsiders in the airport’s periphery, was a significant problem. “Residents have helped mitigate the issue to some extent by creating awareness and organising regular clean-up campaigns, as well as providing bags for collection of slaughterhouse waste to pig and poultry farms. However, the responsibility falls finally on the city Corporation,” he says. 

Antony Raju, Thiruvananthapuram MLA, says relocation of fish and meat markets near the airport was the only surefire solution to pre-empt aviation mishaps, hold-ups, and financial losses that bird strikes could cause.

Last week, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired a meeting discussing waste disposal near Thiruvananthapuram airport. He suggested a crackdown on illegal waste dumping and created a committee to mitigate the bird strike menace.

Corporation Secretary S. Jahamgeer said Thiruvananthapuram’s new state-of-the-art abattoir, scheduled to be commissioned in June, will mitigate the problem somewhat. Meat vendors could use the scientific facility to slaughter livestock and poultry before selling them to different markets and locales.