Bird strike hits Air Malta plane in Lourdes

An Air Malta charter flight from Malta to Lourdes encountered a bird strike on landing in the early hours of 18th July (today), leading to disruptions of future flights.

The national carrier informed that a bird strike hit one of its planes as it was landing in Lourdes following a flight which took of from Malta (KM7446). Fortunately, all passengers disembarked safely.

Consequently, the flight which was due to depart from Lourdes to Malta (KM7447) was delayed in order for the necessary inspections to be carried out by the technical support team.

Due to the incident, and also due to the extra flights between Malta and Palermo which were introduced to assist passengers affected by the Catania Airport fire, the airline expects its schedule for the day to be to be disrupted.

A fire which broke out at Catania Airport on 16th July, led to all of its operations being suspended until 14:00 Wednesday 19th July. As a result, Air Malta informed that it had to cancel 16 flights, which affected roughly 2,100 passengers.

The bird strike is evocative of a series of similar incidents which took place between December and January, whereby two of the airline's planes were affected by bird strikes, causing several delays.