Niue's Premier says recent bad weather is to blame for the Air New Zealand flight ordeal which saw one of its plane's forced to abort its landing on Niue at the last minute yesterday.
A technical malfunction with the approach lights at Niue's Hanan Airport forced the 737 plane to abandon its landing and go into an hour-long holding pattern while engineers unsuccessfully tried to fix the problem.
The plane then flew to Tonga to refuel before returning to Auckland after almost ten hours.
78 passengers who had hoped to arrive in Niue from Auckland yesterday, are due to complete their trip tonight.
Premier Young Vivian says the lighting system is new but recent bad weather patterns jeopardise its effectiveness.
"The change in climate at present moment has caused a lot of problems. We have never had such wet weather at this point in time or this month since we have had this year. It's competely out of the patterns that we used to have and it is the weather that has caused this."
Young Vivian
