The Civil Aviation Authority has explained that a Kenyan Airways plane on Monday night had to declare an emergency return after it hit into a bird shortly after take off from the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA).

Authority Corporate Affairs Manager Gabriel Lesa confirmed to News Diggers in an interview that it was a bird strike and not a stray dog as reported by other media.

Lesa said the plane had to return and make an emergency landing so that engineers could assess the impact.

“They just had a technical problem which they actually reported and came back to land. They actually hit into a bird, it was a bird strike and they just came back to assess whether it was serious. They were delayed for almost I think… two hours. The engineers looked to assess whether there was enough damage but then they discovered it was okay. And that took almost two hours, and then they even flew out. So it wasn’t a stray dog, it was a bird actually,” said Lesa.

He said the flight was delayed for 2 hours and that after assessing the fault, engineers discovered that it was not a serious problem.