Sydney airport Closed 3.8.08
 

Heard on the scanner this afternoon sydney airport was closed. Can someone shed some light on what had happened.

If it was due to a Qantas incident I probably couldn't help but laugh.

The current Notams seem to suggest everything is ops normal, but I do recognise that your post was made nearly an hour ago.
I'm sure I'll hear something tomorrow if it was anything significant.

A DJ Flight was ready for takeoff to Syd by the look of it and all he did was return to the gate when word came thru Syd was not accepting any flights.

Just did a quick scan of international and domestic arrivals on the sydney airport web site and apart from a few late running flights, all flights have landed on or near time with no major gaps. If it was closed it seems to have been only for a brief period.

I was listening to the scanner while gardening and about 5:15 pm aircraft were advised that the airport was closed, aircraft approaching while still in the cruise were advised to reduce to minimum cruise speed.

About this time an Air New Zealand A320 went around, possibly NZ743, maybe due to a runway blockage but it went up to 6,000 feet and came back in 15 minutes or so. During this time the airport reopened one parallel runway and was then open for all arrivals, so it was very short lived.

I'd be interested to know what caused the closure because debris or a disabled aircraft on the runway would have only affected one runway.

It was just a local standby for an aircraft that hadn't even taxied to the runway. Nothing major.

And no, it wasn't a Qantas aircraft, so it won't make the news:rolleyes:

Any more info, Nigel?
 

Can you share with us the reason for the standby, Nigel? It's not every day that YSSY is formally closed, even for a matter of minutes - to my mind that makes it legitimately newsworthy.

I'd rather not, besides I don't think it is newsworthy.

Nigel, are you able to reveal whether the Air NZ go around was part of the shut down or did it occur due to a totally unrelated reason?