Some Weather Delays and Diversions at CQ Airports - QLink B717-200 VH-NXO Lands at Longreach Airport!

Certainly some inclement weather is affecting parts of Central and North Queensland in recent days and on Saturday 30 January, storms and heavy rain over Mount Isa caused a flight from Brisbane to divert and land at Longreach Airport.

It was certainly a surprise to note that QantasLink (Cobham Aviation) Boeing B717-200 VH-NXO diverted to Longreach while operating the QJE1780 service from Brisbane to Mount Isa.  It appears that VH-NXO was overhead Mount Isa and held at 14000 feet for sometime before being forced to divert to Longreach.

File photo

http://flightaware.com/

After around 90 minutes on the ground, VH-NXO eventually continued to Mount Isa as QJE1780 before landing successfully.  It then operated a somewhat delayed QJE1781 service back to Brisbane.

Meanwhile, on Sunday 31 January, it appears that there were no commercial flights in or out of Moranbah Airport.  I noted that the afternoon QantasLink Dash-8-Q400 operated service from Brisbane - QLK2464 operated by VH-QON - landed at Mackay, while the Virgin Australia ATR 72 operated service from Brisbane - VOZ1671 operated by VH-VPJ - landed at Rockhampton.  Both flights eventually returned to Brisbane.