Flydubai aircraft returns to Dubai after engine fire due to Nepal bird strike

KATHMANDU/DUBAI (Reuters) - A flydubai flight from Kathmandu to Dubai experienced a bird strike during takeoff but returned to the United Arab Emirates, the company said on Monday.

"Our experienced flight crew followed standard operating procedure and continued the onward journey after determining that the engine was within normal operating parameters," a spokesperson for the UAE company said.

Jagannath Niroula, spokesperson for the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, said in a statement to Reuters that an engine caught fire shortly after takeoff from Kathmandu. The fire on flydubai flight 576 was under control and the Boeing 737-800 plane had 167 passengers on board, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

Flydubai said the aircraft landed normally in Dubai just after midnight local time and that further inspection would be conducted.

(This story has been refiled to delete an extraneous word in paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh, Akriti Sharma, Gopal Sharma, Sudipto Ganguly and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Barbara Lewis and Matthew Lewis)