More Bad Weather Means More Flight Diversions in Central Queensland

An early start at Emerald Airport for me on Tuesday 26 June.  While I was there I managed to capture three of four Skytrans fly-in fly-out (FIFO) arriving after diverting from Clermont Aerodrome.  My wife tells me that Clermont had a day of drizzle and low cloud - this meant that all the usual FIFO charters to and from Clermont Aerodrome went through Emerald Airport.

Pictured below are Skytrans Dash-8-300s VH-QQP and VH-QQM which both arrived at Emerald from Mackay.



Dash-8-100 VH-QQL is pictured arriving from Townsville. 



I believe that Dash-8-100 VH-QQI also arrived into Emerald.  All four Dash-8s departed from Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast as they would normally do from Clermont.

There were some other diversions from Moranbah Airport and Gladstone Airport on Tuesday 26 June.

Virgin Australia ATR 72-500 VH-FVM (pictured below last weekend) diverted to Bundaberg Airport after unsuccessfully trying to land at Gladstone - where Jamie C reports that persistent drizzle and low cloud also caused numerous flight delays and disruptions.



Jamie also reports that QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-NXO again had problems getting into Gladstone.  After circling Gladstone and eventually landing yesterday, Jamie reports that VH-NXO didn't even land at Gladstone this evening, and instead returned to Brisbane.

At Moranbah Airport, there were again disruptions caused by the weather, with numerous QantasLink (Sunstate Airlines) Dash-8-Q400 flights noted diverting and operating through Mackay Airport.

The weather is expected to start clearing to the South - slowly - so there could yet be more disruptions for at least tomorrow.