Hong Kong Airport Closed Down...

Intro

Following a lovely sunny day in Hong Kong, which I will write about in the next extract, I headed off to the airport ready to board my flight over to Beijing Capital Airport. My Uber driver had shades on, we were rocking to some music, and about to arrive when...

What Happened

A dark cloud suddenly loomed over us. It was like nothing I've ever seen before as within 30 seconds, the sky turned from bright blue to dark grey. Rain filled the windshield, cones flew across the road, and everyone ducked for shelter, it was a colossal rainstorm.

It's unreal how quickly the weather can change here.

As I arrived at the airport with Uber (for reasons I shall explain later), I could barely make out an A330 and within seconds, it had completely vanished from my eyesight. Keep in mind, that this plane was no more than 3-400 meters away...

Execute Missed Approach...

When my driver had dropped me off curbside at Terminal 1, the very first thing I did was to check Flightaware to see if the airport was still active. As I presumed, Hong Kong airport has been temporarily closed. There must have been 10-15 aircraft executing missed approach procedures, while not a single plane took off for over 20 minutes...

Talk about a go-around!

I would have been petrified had I been on the plane

They are all flocking!

As I write this article from the Plaza Premium First Lounge, no more than 30 minutes later, the airport has now re-opened and accepting departures and arrivals. However, for a minute there I was taken aback about how the weather can change so rapidly here. Imagine being on final into Kai Tak and this happened!

Touch wood, my flight onboard Air China isn't affected in a few hours!

Final Thoughts

About an hour ago, I was arriving at Hong Kong International Airport when a sudden rainstorm struck out of the blue. The airport was completely closed for about 20 minutes due to extremely high gusts, and to be honest, it was a little frightening. Wow, Hong Kong!