| Mount Isa Airport | |
| Iata: | ISA |
| Icao: | YBMA |
| Type: | Public |
| Owner: | Mount Isa Airport Pty Ltd |
| Operator: | Queensland Airports |
| City-Served: | Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia |
| Elevation-F: | 1,121 |
| Website: | www.mountisaairport.com.au |
| Coordinates: | -20.6639°N 139.4886°W |
| Pushpin Map: | Queensland |
| Pushpin Label: | YBMA |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Queensland |
| Metric-Rwy: | y |
| R1-Number: | 16/34 |
| R1-Length-M: | 2,560 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
| Stat-Year: | 2010-2011 |
| Stat1-Header: | Revenue passengers |
| Stat1-Data: | 217,525 |
| Stat2-Header: | Aircraft movements |
| Stat2-Data: | 5,376 |
| Footnotes: | Sources: Australian AIP and aerodrome chart[1] BITRE |
Mount Isa Airport [2] is an airport serving the western Queensland city of Mount Isa, Australia.[1] It is served by a variety of scheduled regional airlines, with flights to Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns as well as several other regional centres.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service has one of its nine Queensland bases at Mount Isa Airport.[3]
Since 2005 the airport has been owned by Queensland Airports, which also owns Townsville Airport, Longreach Airport and Gold Coast Airport.[4] [5]
In the 2010–11 financial year, Mount Isa Airport handled 217,525 passengers, a 25.1% increase over the previous year.
In 2019, the airport was a base for relief efforts for the North West Queensland floods.[6]
The airport resides at an elevation of 1121feet above sea level. It has one runway designated 16/34 with an asphalt surface measuring 2560x and is 3.4NM north of the city
Mount Isa Airport was ranked 30th in Australia for the number of revenue passengers served in financial year 2010–2011.[7] [8]
See main article: Ansett-ANA Flight 149. On 22 September 1966 a Vickers Viscount aircraft departed from Mount Isa Airport with twenty passengers for a flight to Brisbane via Longreach. Forty-four minutes after takeoff a fire started in one of the engines. The crew were unable to extinguish the fire or feather the propeller so made an emergency descent with the intention of landing at Winton, a town 225NM south-east of Mount Isa. The fire spread to the fuel tank and weakened the wing structure so that a large part of the left wing broke away. The aircraft crashed 12miles west of Winton. All on board were killed.[9] It remains the fifth-worst accident in Australia's civil aviation history.[10]