By Our Reporter Birds have been a big nuisance at the congested Tribhuvan International Airport of Kathmandu for years. The birds flying in the sky above the TIA field not only disrupt the flights but also cause a damage to the aircraft. Of late, an aircraft of Nepal Airlines have been grounded after a bird hit it on July 7 this year. The aircraft ‘Lumbini’ of the national flag carrier was hit by a bird when it was rolling for takeoff  to Hong Kong carrying 59 passengers. Though the bird strike did not cause any damage to life, it badly damaged the engine of the aircraft bring the international air service of NA to a complete halt. The engineers who inspected the aircraft concluded that the compressor blades in the right engines were damaged by the bird strike and they need replacement with new ones. Sources at NA said that commercial flights could not be resumed withou replacing the damaged blades with new ones. However, the task to make the replacement has not yet begun in lack of the blades. The NA has not purchased the spare parts yet. New reports suggest that the NA has not made any decision regarding the import of the required spare parts, which means it will take more days for the maintenance of the aircraft. If the engineers get the spare parts, they can fix the damaged blades in three hours. Anyway, this incident has shown that the TIA is not completely safe from the birds while the NA officials are incompetent in managing the aircraft. Otherwise, it should not have taken for days to repair an aircraft damaged by the bird strike.