Sunday Afternoon Storms in Brisbane Cause Diversions to Central Queensland Airports

With thanks to the Brisbane Airport Movements Blog, we can report on four flights that were affected by a line of severe storms that passed through Brisbane during the afternoon on Sunday 27 September.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) ATR 72-600 VH-VPI (pictured below) was operating the VOZ1702 service from Bundaberg to Brisbane and returned to Bundy.

File photo taken by Micah S  ©

Meanwhile fellow VARA ATR 72-600 VH-FVZ diverted to Bundaberg while operating as VOZ1714 from Gladstone to Brisbane.

Two other flights were forced to divert to CQ Airports with Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 VH-YFP which was operating as VOZ782 from Cairns to Brisbane diverted to Mackay while QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-NXM which was operating as QJE1799 from Alice Springs to Brisbane diverted to Hervey Bay (Fraser Coast) Airport.

With VH-NXM diverting to Hervey Bay, there was actually two QantasLink B717-200s on the ground at once with VH-YQT also visiting while operating from and back to Sydney.