Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has launched a campaign to fight the "bird menace." A briefing for the media was held at the Headquarters, Southern Air Command, PAF, here on Wednesday. Expressing his views on the occasion, Air Officer Commanding, Southern Air Command, Air Vice Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman, said that in the recent months.
The PAF lost two fighter aircraft in Karachi area due to "bird strike," thereby causing a big loss in terms of valuable national equipment. Luckily, the pilots managed to divert the aircraft away from the civil population before ejecting safely.
Air Vice Marshal Qamar said the main reason of these crashes was improper management of the waste disposal system in Karachi. He sought the attention and sincere efforts of the public to fight the bird menace, especially in the vicinity of the PAF bases Masroor (Mauripur) and Faisal (Sharea Faisal) and the Jinnah International Airport.
The people were asked not to throw waste indiscriminately and extend full support to the efforts of the PAF in fighting the bird menace in the vicinity of runways so as to avoid bird activity around garbage and waste food dumps.
They were requested to desist from throwing eatables near the airports. The leftover food and the waste should be disposed of properly away from the precincts of the runways. The officials of the Base or of the district administration should be immediately informed in case of presence of any dead animal near the runways.
It was pointed out that a slight carelessness could lead to a big accident. The people were requested to extend their full cooperation towards keeping the birds away from the runways and thus help make the flights of aircraft safe. A short movie regarding the bird menace was also screened on the occasion.