A Lufthansa Airbus A321-200, registration D-AIDF performing flight LH-1838 from Munich (Germany) to Tenerife South,CI (Spain), was departing Munich's runway 08R when tower observed smoke from the aircraft and something falling off the aircraft between taxiways B8 and B10. A runway inspection found debris on the runway, small pieces of bird(s) possibly originally being a larger bird. The crew stopped the climb at FL080 and returned to Munich for a safe landing on runway 08R about 25 minutes after departure.

A postflight inspection revealed the right hand engine had ingested a number of birds. The occurrence aircraft has not yet returned to service 5 days later.