A Vietnam Airlines aircraft heading to Ho Chi Minh City on Monday had to return to Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport after it hit a bird. Flight VN249 made the emergency landing about 20 minutes after departure. The crew had heard unusual sounds in the engine, the national carrier said. At the airport, technicians found a dead bird carcass in the engine, it said. “The problem has been identified as a collision between a bird and the aircraft,” a Vietnam Airlines representative said. All passengers were transferred to another aircraft to resume their journey to HCMC. Early this month, the Airports Corporation of Vietnam sought the government's approval to increase service fees in order to fund a system that it said would help detect foreign objects on runways at the country's two largest airports in Hanoi and HCMC. The state-owned manager of 22 airports now wants to charge international flights US$35 each and domestic flights $17. The new 24/7 monitoring project is expected to cost more than $52.09m. Now humans are in charge of scanning the runways seven times a day to keep them clear of birds and foreign objects that can threaten flight safety, the corporation said.<br/>