ABC News on top form.
I'm just going to leave it to you people to see if you can find a single accurate sentence in that mess. As SLF, I couldn't find one.
A plover (as mentioned in the original post) weighs around 5-150g, depending on species. Masked lapwings are the largest of the family, and a fat one would be 300g.
Possibilities: A pelican? A plump one might be over 10kg, which would probably do the trick. Again, as ignorant SLF, this sounds like a compressor stall. Seems like a good call to do a straight-in approach to Brisbane - probably closer than a return to Coolangatta.
Anyway, good outcome for everyone except the person who has to pull the giblets out of the fan.