‘Severe’ turbulence, lightning strike turn back Air NZ flights

Two Air New Zealand flights have been forced to turn back amid wild weather across the country. A Queenstown-bound jet returned to Auckland after the plane was struck by lightning on Wednesday morning. Scheduled to depart at 9:50am, flight NZ613 got as far as Taranaki before turning around, a map from flight tracking site Flightradar24 shows. Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer Captain David Morgan said the “challenging weather conditions” across Aotearoa were having an impact on flights. “Earlier this morning, NZ613 from Auckland to Queenstown encountered a lightning strike en-route,” he said. “Given the aircraft’s location and the availability of engineering support and spare aircraft, the decision was made for the flight to divert back to Auckland, where the aircraft landed safely.”<br/>