Mini tornado rips through airport

Winds of over 150kph smash trees and damage an aircraft.

The wind was so strong it snapped the cable used to tie down this plane to the main cable.(Photo courtesy of Rick Spry.)

A mini tornado ripped through Kununurra Airport on Friday afternoon leaving a trail of destruction.

Trees near Kona Caravan Park and on the eastern approach to the airport were either uprooted or had branches torn from them as the twister moved through.

An Alligator Airways floatplane snapped a cable used to attach it to the main tie-down cable.

Chief pilot Peter Wieland said the plane did a 180-degree turn after snapping the cable before flipping on its side and coming to rest 20 metres away.

Peter said the wings had been badly damaged and the plane was being trucked to Perth for repairs.

Some parts would have to be flown in from the US.

Peter radioed another plane on its way to Kununurra and turned it back to Wyndham with instructions to tie it down as soon as it landed.

Airport manager Rick Spry witnessed the storm: "It was just like a mini tornado," he said.

He said the instruments at the airport were registering gusts of 152 kilometres an hour just before the power was cut off.

Slingair chief executive officer Sonja Mitchell said the wind was so strong that it blew out windows in two of the airline's buses that it uses to transport passengers to the airport.

She said the only other damage had been to a tie down point on an Airvan aircraft.

"We were lucky to have no major aircraft damage," she said.

"These storms seem to come through every few years and we just have to be ready for them."

The winds also caused some damage to a hangar at the airport, stripping away metal cladding on the roof.

A similar storm several years ago overturned two Ord Air planes.

Teams of workers cleaned up the fallen trees around the airport and by Tuesday morning it was all looking spick and span again.