Air India Express Flight Returns to Vizag After Suspected Bird Strike

An Air India Express flight from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad returned to Visakhapatnam shortly after take-off on Thursday 18 September 2025 after a suspected bird strike during the climb. The aircraft landed safely, nobody was hurt, and the flight was cancelled while engineers inspected the aircraft.

What happened on flight IX 2658

Flight IX 2658 left Visakhapatnam (Vizag) at about 2.38pm with 103 passengers on board. According to the airport director, N Purushottam, the pilot reported a problem with one of the engines soon after departure, declared an emergency and asked to return. The aircraft had flown only around 10 nautical miles, and the bird hit is believed to have happened while it was still climbing out.

The aircraft was back on the ground at about 3pm, roughly 20 minutes after it took off. Emergency services were on standby for the landing, which was uneventful. Passengers left the aircraft normally.

Air India Express said in a statement that one of its aircraft had suffered a bird strike at Visakhapatnam and returned after take-off, and that the flight had been cancelled until the aircraft could be certified fit to return to service. Passengers were offered a free move to the airline's next flight on the same day or a full refund.

Why a suspected engine bird strike means a return

When a bird is ingested into a turbofan, the damage can range from nothing visible to bent or broken fan blades. Crews cannot see inside the engine, so they rely on indications such as vibration levels, temperature and thrust response. Standard practice is to treat a suspected engine strike as a reason to land at the nearest suitable airport, which in this case was the departure airport only a few minutes behind them.

Once on the ground, the aircraft cannot fly again until engineers have inspected the engine, typically with a borescope to look at the fan and the core, and checked the rest of the airframe for impact marks. That is why the flight was cancelled rather than delayed: the inspection and any parts replacement can take hours or days, and the airline cannot predict the outcome when passengers are waiting at the gate.

For passengers, the practical result is a short flight that ends where it started. For the airline, a single engine strike can mean an aircraft out of service, a cancelled rotation and, if blades are damaged, an engine change.

Bird strikes in India

Bird strikes are a routine hazard for Indian airlines, particularly at airports surrounded by urban sprawl, open drains, waste sites and water bodies. Government figures given to Parliament by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol show that confirmed bird strikes at Indian airports rose from 674 in 2020 to 1,371 in 2023, before easing slightly to 1,278 in 2024. Part of the rise reflects the recovery in traffic after the pandemic.

Delhi recorded the highest number of strikes of any Indian airport in 2024. Airports are required to run wildlife hazard management programmes, which include habitat control, bird-scaring measures and monitoring, but much of the attraction for birds lies outside the airport fence, in areas airport operators do not control.

The Vizag return was the second bird-related disruption for Air India Express in Andhra Pradesh that month. On 4 September 2025 a Vijayawada to Bengaluru flight was cancelled after a bird, reported to be an eagle, struck the nose of the aircraft as it moved for take-off. Passengers were rebooked or offered refunds.

The airline and the airport

Air India Express is the low-cost arm of the Tata-owned Air India group. It absorbed AIX Connect, formerly AirAsia India, in October 2024 and flies a fleet of Boeing 737 and Airbus A320-family narrowbodies on domestic routes and to the Gulf and South-East Asia.

At the time of the incident, Visakhapatnam's civil flights used a civil enclave at INS Dega, an Indian Navy air station. The airport handled domestic services and a small number of international flights, with limited room to grow because of the shared military use.

What has happened since

No findings on this occurrence or on the condition of the engine have been made public by the airline or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Visakhapatnam's civil traffic has since moved. Scheduled commercial flights at the old airport ended on 16 August 2026, and the new Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram, built and run by GMR about 44 km from the city, began commercial operations on 17 August 2026. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated it on 1 August. The first arrival was an IndiGo flight from Hyderabad, followed by an Air India Express service from Bengaluru. The old airfield remains available for general aviation and private flights.