A Pair of Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 Jets Divert to Gladstone Airport while enroute to Brisbane

While we were all sleeping in the wee small hours of Saturday 20 February, locals and us at the CQ Plane Spotting Blog alike were surprised to hear that a pair of Virgin Australia Boeing B737-800 jets landed at Gladstone Airport.  Both aircraft were operating services to Brisbane and were forced to divert to the port city due to a line of nasty storms and rain showers that were passing through Brisbane.

File photo taken by Anthony Schulz  ©

The aircraft and flights involved were VH-YFK (shown above at Gladstone during a previous scheduled visit) which was operating as VOZ471 from Perth to Brisbane, while VH-YIW was operating VOZ44 from Denpasar (Bali) to Brisbane.  With the arrival of VH-YIW, it is believed that this was first ever arrival of an international flight into Gladstone Airport - certainly the first arrival of an international Regular Public Transport (RPT) flight.

Reports suggest that both aircraft were initially diverting to Rockhampton however the decision was made to divert to Gladstone.

After both aircraft took on fuel, they both departed to and landed successfully at Brisbane Airport.