(Posted 17th January 2023)
Uganda Airlines flight UR 710, destined for Johannesburg, suffered a bird strike on take off yesterday.
The pilots subsequently dumped fuel while circling over Lake Victoria before returning to the airport. The Bombardier CRJ900, registered as 5X-KNP landed safely and is now undergoing maintenance to repair the damage.
Passengers and cargo were subsequently reloaded into another CRJ aircraft which left for Johannesburg several hours later, taking off without an incident.
This incident follows hot on the heels of another birdstrike on take off, when a Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 suffered the same fate about a week ago. Flight TK606 also had to dump tons of fuel before reaching the maximum landing weight and being able to safely land back at Entebbe International Airport. The aircraft, after an inspection, was then found to be airworthy and took off again some hours later to resume its flight to Istanbul.
Aviators have raised issues with ATCNews over active and constant bird control measures at the airport, which is surrounded by a bird sanctuary and has a waste dump site not too far from the airport, in the past often cited as a potential aviation hazard.
