KARACHI, July 24: A PIA aircraft was hit by a bird when it was about to land in Lahore on Monday.

The damaged aircraft was scheduled to return to Karachi at 10pm with over 220 passengers, but the flight was delayed.

This was the second incident of a bird hit affecting a PIA flight at the Lahore airport in less than a week.

According to sources, an engine of the Boeing 777 aircraft was damaged by minutes before it was to land. It was carrying 160 passengers.

A few days ago another PIA aircraft, a Boeing 747 Jumbo coming from Saudi Arabia, was hit by a bird when it was about to land in Lahore. Its engine was also damaged.

Responding to Dawn queries, PIA spokesperson Sultan Hassan said the aircraft had been grounded and a team of engineers and technicians was sent there to assess the damage.

He said the Boeing 747 which had been damaged a few days ago was examined by the engineers and it was still unserviceable.

He said that over 30 bird hits involving PIA aircraft had occurred in 2012 and over 60 PIA aircraft had been hit by birds in 2011.

He said it was the Civil Aviation Authority’s responsibility to keep birds away from the airport so that aircraft could land and take off safely.

He said that PIA had been writing to the CAA regularly but the bird menace continued to be there.