Advertisement

ATSB report reveals Qantas jets' near miss

A Qantas A330 jet.

An air traffic controller failed to assess the potential conflict between two 300-passenger Qantas jets in crowded airspace over Adelaide before allowing one of the jets to climb into the path of the other.

Details of incident, involving flights to and from Sydney on September 20, 2013, were contained in an Australian Transport Safety Bureau report released today.

Equipment on one of the jets designed to alert the crew to a potential mid-air collision also failed.

Airservices Australia is reviewing air routes and the design of airspace as a result of the near miss.

The ATSB said the near miss was serious and “highlights the importance of controllers following their normal processes to ensure traffic is assessed prior to providing control instructions."

The jets were 17km west of Adelaide at the time.

One was flying from Sydney to Perth and the other from Perth to Sydney.

The ATSB report said that both planes were within radar surveillance coverage at the time and were equipped with a traffic collision avoidance system.

The lack of separation occured after an air traffic controller told the Sydney-Perth flight to climb.

An air traffic control computer system alerted the controller of the potential conflict and the flight's path was changed.

At the same time, the crew of the Perth-Sydney flight responded to alerts from its collision avoidance system.

But the same system on the Sydney-Perth flight malfunctioned and failed to warn the crew.

The ATSB said the reason for the malfunction could not be determined and the equipment manufacturer considered it to be a unique event.

In its report the ATSB warned that there is a safety issue “relating to the convergence of many published air routes overhead Adelaide.”