Turkish Airlines plane forced back on ground at Entebbe after bird strike

What you need to know:

Flight number 606 departed Entebbe at 7.30 am for Istanbul while it was raining.  Unfortunately, the aircraft experienced a bird strike during take-off

There was panic at Entebbe International Airport on Tuesday morning after Istanbul –bound Turkish Airlines plane spent an hour and 20 minutes hovering in Ugandan airspace after taking off from the airport.

“Flight number 606 departed Entebbe at 7.30 am for Istanbul while it was raining.  Unfortunately, the aircraft experienced a bird strike during take-off. As a precautionary measure, the flight hovered in the Ugandan airspace before landing safely at Entebbe at 08:52 am,” Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) said in a statement.

Asked whether the airport has a mechanism to scare away birds before take-off, the Authority’s spokesperson, Mr Vianney Luggya said: “There is a Bird Hazard unit at the airport, which undertakes a runway sweep (scaring away of birds) prior to any take-off or landing. That is how we have managed to reduce on instances of this nature in spite of Entebbe being a bird sanctuary.”

After being checked for airworthiness the aircraft later resumed flight with 281 passengers and crew on board.
“The Turkish Airlines flight number 606 has been cleared and departed Entebbe International Airport at 10:49 am with 281 passengers and crew on board,” CAA added in a separate statement at around 11:17.