Beijing Capital Airport is asking the local government for quick legislation against keeping pigeons around the airport after a collision of a flock of the birds with a plane on Monday, the Beijing News reported.

A British Airways plane collides with a flock of birds in this undated file photo.

At about 8 pm on June 18, a flock of pigeons collided with a plane while landing, and fortunately didn't impact the plane and the safety of the passengers. Nine pigeons were found dead and they were identified as those kept by a villager living three kilometers away from a runway in the western part of the airfield.

The airport says the top "enemies" of the airport need to be kept away from the area and related departments should have more restrictions in place as soon as possible not only for the safety of the planes but for the birds as well.

But the local pigeon association responded that prohibiting the raising of pigeons in the area cannot ensure the safety of the planes 100 percent, for even pigeons far away from the area may lose their way and end up there.

Since 1997, more than 10 municipal and provincial governments such as Guiyang, Chongqing, Sichun and Nanjing have introduced rules and regulations to control and administer the keeping and setting free of birds near airports, an airport manager says. According to the Beijing government, the Chinese capital doesn't have similar regulations.

Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor with Peking University thinks Beijing needs local regulations to ensure the safety of flights at Beijing Capital Airport. Though it is a sport for the residents nearby to keep carrier pigeons, it is not a private activity when it affects the safety of the public.

"They must have been wild pigeons that accidentally got in the plane's way," a local resident called Liu Wanfu told the Beijing News. He said the carrier pigeons kept by the locals are trained near their houses. Even when they do long-distance training every year, they fly regular routes. Another resident says the pigeons are scared of the loud noise from the planes and would never go near them.

The destructive force of a collision between the birds and a plane can be as fatal as an explosion of an artillery shell. This is also one of the major causes of air crashes. People in charge of airport operations use many tactics to keep birds away from the runway. These include a net smeared with birdlime, audio systems, blinding light systems and gas artillery are used to threaten the birds and they cost the airport nearly a million yuan every year.