Locust invasion ‘grave concern’ for landing, taking off aircraft; using wipers could spread the smear: DGCA to airlines

NEW DELHI: The locust invasion is a “grave concern” for aircraft during landing, take off and taxi phase. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has advised airlines not to fly through locust swarms and asked pilots to re-consider using wipers to remove them from windshield as that could “smear the spread” even more and obstruct their vision. While India faces locust activity on a small scale annually, the “level of presence of locust witnessed this year was last seen more than 20 years ago”.
“…impact of large numbers (of locusts) on windshield is known to have impacted pilot forward vision. This is a grave concern during landing, taxi and take off phase. Use of wipers at times may cause the smear to spread even more, pilot should consider this aspect prior to opting to use wipers to remove locust from the wind shield,” an operations circular issued by DGCA joint DG Ravi Krishna on Friday said.
“Generally locust are found at lower levels and therefore pose a threat to aircraft in the critical landing and take off phase of flight. Almost all air intake ports of the aircraft will be prone to ingestion in large numbers, if aircraft flies through a swarm (areas like engine inlet, air-conditioning pack inlet). Pitot and static sources can also get partially or fully blocked while flying through Locust swarms.