An alarming pattern of near-collisions at Sydney Airport has prompted Australia’s transport safety authority to investigate a third incident involving two planes, marking the third occurrence in just a few weeks.
This latest close call transpired mere hours after a similar incident from the previous week captured national and global attention, raising significant safety concerns. During that previous event, a crew member suffered an injury.
On Thursday night, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau disclosed it had launched an inquiry into the runway incident involving two Boeing 737 planes that occurred at 10 a.m. on August 9th.
According to a statement provided to SBS News, the ATSB explained, “The incident took place as a Virgin Australia 737 received clearance from air traffic control (ATC) to take off from Sydney’s runway 34L.”
“While the crew began take-off procedures, they noticed a Qantas 737 making its way across the runway on taxiway Lima,” the statement further revealed.
“The Qantas crew reported they had been cleared by ATC to cross the runway.
“Upon seeing the Qantas aircraft, the Virgin Australia crew reduced thrust and the aircraft came to a stop, roughly a kilometre from the intersection.”
The Qantas jet crossed the takeoff path of the Virgin flight, forcing ATC to cancel the latter’s departure clearance “at the same time”.
The ATSB said investigations were already underway, with evidence being gathered and interviews with the involved parties expected to be conducted.
On Sunday, a Jetstar flight had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a Qatar Airways plane being towed across the tarmac.
The two weekend incidents come just weeks after two Qantas flights, with ATC permission, managed to narrowly avoid contact in Sydney at the end of July.
All three incidents are under investigation by the national transport safety watchdog, which operates “no fault” fact-finding missions in order to prevent similar incidents from occurring, rather than to take punitive action.
On Monday, ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said that the Jetstar-Qatar incident “could have been far more serious” and that incidents like that “shouldn’t happen”.
“We do have an aviation sector that is the envy of the world. That’s not to say that with incidents like this, we don’t take them seriously to improve,” he said.
“But aircraft movements, whether it be in a busy airport or in the skies, are incredibly well coordinated here in Australia.”
Airservices Australia — the government-owned corporation responsible for managing air traffic control across much of the country — admitted on Monday that it had been too reliant on overtime staffing hours.
Last weekend, hundreds of flights from Sydney were delayed after air traffic control workers called in sick.
Air traffic work is both demanding and needed 365 days a year. Experts have told SBS News that a high-performing air-traffic controller takes around five years to build up sufficient skills and experience.
Federal Transport Minister Catherine King said emergency meetings were held in Canberra on Monday following the disruptions to air travel but said she was “confident” that Airservices Australia was doing “everything they can to get on top of this”.