An IndiGo flight from Hyderabad to Chennai had to do a ‘go-around’ on Friday as a preceding arrival flight at the Chennai airport reported a suspected bird strike. Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) said, at 3.28 p.m., when the flight from Hyderabad was on the final approach, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) had asked the pilot to do a ‘go-around’. “This is because the pilot from the previous flight from Port Blair to Chennai had reported of a ‘suspected bird hit’. The go-around procedure is one where a flight attempts to land, but again climbs up, circles and subsequently lands safely,” an official said. In a statement, AAI said, in view of the reported suspected bird strike, a runway inspection was required to ensure that the runway and associated movement area were safe for continued aircraft operations. “To facilitate the runway inspection, the Hyderabad–Chennai arrival was instructed to go around. The go-around was therefore undertaken as a precautionary safety measure and to allow the necessary runway inspection to be completed. The Hyderabad–Chennai flight subsequently continued its approach and landed safely at 3.45 p.m.”The incident came to light when former Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services Palanivel Thiaga Rajan posted on ‘X’. He said, “Just landed in Chennai after an aborted landing attempt which the Co-Pilot later explained was due to an ATC instruction to abort based on “unexpected movement on the runway. Such “runway protocol” exceptions are signs of potential infrastructure/ATC overload, and therefore potentially pose grave risk of systemic failure.” Published - August 15, 2026 12:34 am IST