As many as 166 passengers were stranded in Coimbatore as the Air Arabia flight from Coimbatore to Sharjah was cancelled after a bird hit one of the propellers of the flight early in the morning on Monday.

According to sources, the Air Arabia flight was scheduled to depart from Coimbatore International Airport to Sharjah at 4.30 a.m. with 166 passengers including four children. When the flight was moving towards the runway, a big bird which is doubted to be either a black kite or a peafowl hit one of the propellers of the flight and damaged the propeller forcing the pilot to abandon the journey.

Since there were no other alternative flights, the passengers were asked to wait until the aircraft was repaired. They were accommodated in local lodges in the city.

“The spare parts are arriving from Kochi in a flight and the engineering team would start repairing the aircraft once the spare parts are here,” one of the officials said.