Plane passengers scream ‘are we on fire?’ after bird strike

Flight was forced to make an emergency landing after 15 minutes

Some passengers on a recent flight thought the plane was on fire after it flew through a flock of birds, with several getting sucked into the engine.

Known as a “bird strike” in the aviation industry, the incident took place onboard SCAT Airlines flight DV-766 from Atyrau to Nur-Sultan in Kazakhstan on 10 November.

According to the Aviation Herald, the aircraft was still on its ascent when it “flew through a flock of ducks or geese and received a number of bird strikes, one engine (CFM56) ingested a number of birds and began to emit unusual noises.”

The captain, Ivan Karpovich, made the decision to immediately return to Atyrau and make an emergency landing.

The aircraft, which was carrying 115 passengers at the time, landed safely and the flight was then cancelled, according to FlightRadar24.

Footage shared from the flight shows some travellers panicking, with one passenger heard repeatedly saying: “Are we on fire? We are on fire!”, while others try to reassure her.

The video also shows the Boeing 737 engine stuffed with feathers, after several birds were sucked inside.

Passenger Aybek Aytanov told The Sun: “It was smoking, the engine sparked. People who sat next to the windows saw this.

“The plane shook, people were panicking. With a lot of effort we all calmed down and the plane somehow managed to land.

“We were all praying as we were landing.”

All passengers were refunded in full, according to the official Instagram page for the city of Atyrau, with those who needed to be accommodated put up in local hotels overnight.

“Investigations are underway on the plane that landed in an emergency,” said a SCAT spokesperson. “We can't say when the results will be ready. Passengers who asked to return their tickets will be refunded without penalty. Thirty-one passengers asked to be transferred to another flight to Nur-Sultan. Other passengers have not yet made a decision.”

In a later post, @atyrauoil.official said the airline intended to award Captain Karpovich with a medal for landing the flight safely.

According to Steve Landells, a former airline pilot and flight safety specialist at the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA), bird strikes are “a fairly common occurrence but are rarely dangerous. Aircraft are designed and built to withstand bird strikes and pilots undergo rigorous training to enable them to deal with eventualities like a bird strike.

“When a bird goes in to an engine, the energy within the engine usually means the bird disintegrates.”

However, he adds that multiple bird strikes, or hitting large birds such as Canada geese “can, and have, caused serious accidents.”