Rare September fog causes widespread flight delays at Adelaide Airport
Two international flights bound for Adelaide have been diverted to Melbourne, while one domestic flight is facing a six-hour delay after rare September fog covered the airport.
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About a dozens flights were affected, including two international flights that were diverted, after a rare September fog caused widespread delays at the Adelaide Airport.
Fog was particularly heavy in the northern and western suburbs this morning.
Dense fog could be seen in Brompton about 6am, while Belair was also significantly hazy.
By 8am, the blanket of fog had made its way into the CBD.
An Adelaide-bound flight from Kuala Lumpur was diverted to Melbourne after circling over Williamstown on Tuesday morning.
The Malaysia Airlines flight was scheduled to land at 7am and the pilot tried to touch down but eventually abandoned the plan and had to make the trip east.
Shortly after, a Singapore Airlines flight scheduled to land just before 7.30am was also diverted to Melbourne.
Both flights were expected to refuel and make their way to Adelaide on Tuesday afternoon.
Domestic flights were hit the hardest, however, with one Qantas flight from Melbourne having to turn back. Eventually it landed in Adelaide about four hours after the scheduled arrival of 7am.
One Melbourne-bound Jetstar flight has been delayed by more than six hours. It was scheduled to leave Adelaide at 9.45am, but will instead take off at 4.15pm.
What’s happening with the inbound international the flights this morning @AdelaideAirport MH139 & SQ279 are carving up the skies over Gawler?
— Alli Fick (@alli_fick) September 2, 2019
Malaysia come in to land but took off again....air bridge issue? pic.twitter.com/6ehPu5GTwG
Just after 8.30am, a Virgin flight from Melbourne was forced into a holding pattern over Lake Alexandrina, alongside another Qantas flight. Both flights landed with minimal delays.
An 8.10am Regional Express flight from Broken Hill to Adelaide was cancelled, as well as one from Adelaide to Port Lincoln.
The 10.15am return trip from Port Lincoln was also cancelled.
The fog lifted just after 9.30am and planes started to arrive again.
Adelaide Airport executive general manager Brenton Cox said there would be “a flow on impact” for departures from the flights which were due to land but had yet to arrive.
He said visibility for takeoff is “about 100m” with good lighting but pilots planning to land were doing the right thing by diverting or circling until the fog lifted.
“On arrival, even though the radar systems work perfectly, pilots — as it’s good practice — want to be able to see the runway so as you’re coming down through the clouds and the fog, visibility isn’t good,” he said.
“We’re just a little bit at the mercy of the weather … we’re just lucky we don’t get that (fog) very often in Adelaide.”
A total of 13 flights are facing residual delays departing from Adelaide Airport after morning fog chaos. One Melbourne-bound flight has been delayed for 6 hours pic.twitter.com/L92EX1W9ls
— Josephine Lim (@johzlim) September 3, 2019
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Mark Anolak said the last time a significant fog event affected Adelaide Airport operations in September was in 2003. There have been only five September fog events recorded at the airport since 1992.
“Fog tends to be around June to August in the winter months were there are longer nights,” he said.
“(Tuesday’s) fog is because of a change in air mass overnight, when it was dry and windy yesterday but a trough came through to the Adelaide area, producing moisture for this fog.”
Mr Cox said delays to regional flights including to Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln, Whyalla and Kingscote may not be linked by the fog.
The traveller chaos, ironically, comes on the same day a new global study identified Adelaide Airport as the seventh-best in the world.
The study by Stasher analysed 106 of the world’s biggest airports, with Adelaide’s scoring brownie points for the distance to the city centre and parking costs.