Air India Colombo-Chennai flight suffers bird hit, return journey cancelled

An Air India Colombo-Chennai flight carrying 158 passengers suffered a bird hit on Tuesday, forcing the airline to cancel its return journey, airport authorities said.

The aircraft landed safely, and all the passengers were safely disembarked from the plane, they said.

The bird hit was detected after it touched down at the airport here, the authorities added.

The aircraft has been grounded, and extensive checks were carried out by the Air India engineers and the airline officials cancelled its return journey due to the incident, they said.

The airliner arranged another aircraft for 137 passengers who later left for Colombo, they said.