An IndiGo flight crew operating into Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (VGHS) in Dhaka, Bangladesh issued a wildlife warning to the local control tower after observing jackals on the active runway surface, highlighting persistent challenges with fauna encroachment at airports across South and Southeast Asia. The incident, which drew attention on aviation social media channels, underscores a hazard category that receives far less international scrutiny than bird strikes despite carrying significant risk to aircraft during critical phases of landing and rollout. Jackals are medium-sized canines — typically 15 to 35 pounds — large enough to cause substantial undercarriage damage, tire blow-outs, or FOD ingestion if struck by a landing or departing aircraft at speed.
Wildlife hazard management at international airports is governed under ICAO Annex 14 standards and regional civil aviation regulations, requiring airports to maintain wildlife control programs proportionate to identified risks. Dhaka's primary international gateway has documented a chronic issue with jackals and other mammals breaching or occupying the airfield perimeter, a problem exacerbated by the airport's position within a densely populated urban and semi-urban environment where natural habitat pressure pushes wildlife toward the relative open space of airport grounds. For flight crews operating into VGHS — particularly in low-visibility conditions or at night — the inability to visually clear a runway of fauna prior to landing represents a genuine operational hazard not fully addressed by NOTAM systems designed primarily for infrastructure and procedural changes.
The pilot's decision to broadcast the warning directly to the tower represents correct crew resource management and aligns with standard operating procedure under ICAO and most national civil aviation authority frameworks, which encourage flight crew to report observed hazards to ATC without delay. What the incident also reveals is the dependency of wildlife hazard mitigation on real-time aircrew observation rather than proactive airport management — a gap that operators flying into Category C and D international airports in developing-world infrastructure environments should account for in their threat and error management frameworks. VGHS handles significant international scheduled traffic including Gulf carriers, South Asian flag carriers, and regional operators, meaning the risk is not confined to a low-traffic general aviation environment.
Broader industry context is relevant here. Wildlife strikes globally account for hundreds of millions of dollars in airframe damage annually, with mammals — particularly deer, coyotes, and canines — responsible for a disproportionate share of structural damage relative to their strike frequency compared with birds. The FAA Wildlife Strike Database and ICAO data consistently show that mammal strikes carry higher severity indices than avian events of comparable energy. For Part 135 operators, charter crews, and corporate flight departments planning routes into airports in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America where perimeter security and wildlife management programs are underfunded or inconsistently enforced, prebriefing wildlife hazard history through sources such as ICAO ADREP reports and regional ANSP NOTAMs is a meaningful addition to dispatch risk assessment. The Dhaka jackal incident is a reminder that runway safety encompasses far more than pavement condition and traffic separation.