How Locust Swarm Affects Flight Landing, Takeoff: Check DGCA Guidelines

Even as states prepare to battle the locust swarms, the Director-General Of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a circular on the same for flying. As per a circular released by DGCA, flights cannot pass through areas hit by locust swarms. Pilots have also been asked to share the location of locust swarms enroute.

The circular states that locust swarms can impact the critical take-off and landing phase of a flight. It also states that flights passing through locust swarms can lead to erroneous instrument indication and also relay unreliable airspeed so it's good to avoid flying through locust swarms.

Interestingly, the director-general of the civil aviation, Arun Kumar said that the sector was still researching on the full impact of flights passing through locust swarms and guidelines about flying would be issued soon.

To begin with, a large number of locust swarms on the windshield could mislead the pilot on the directions causing his forward vision to be unpaged which could become a matter of concern during takeoff and landing.

While the pilots have been asked to use the wipers to shoo away locust swarms judiciously, the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) has been asked to share any information of a possible locust swarm in their aerodrome with the flights that arrive and depart from their airports.