Jetstar A320's near miss with Learjet

Australia’s air safety watchdog will examine whether air traffic control procedures were properly followed after two planes came close to a possible collision.

The incident occurred last Saturday morning when a US-registered Learjet and a Jetstar airbus came within 60 seconds of possibly hitting each other in airspace believed to be north of Canberra.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority said today it would look at whether the event was related to recent concerns about shortages of air traffic controllers in charge of monitoring airspace between Sydney and Melbourne.

“We are looking at whether proper procedures were followed and the reported sequence of events and who did what,” spokesman Peter Gibson said.

“We need to look to see if there was any relationship between the incident and the issue of no air traffic controllers providing direction.

“We need to make sure everyone concerned was following procedures properly. I’m not suggesting this did not happen in this case but we are still reviewing tapes of the event, going through all the raw material. CASA is also closely watching the management issue of air traffic controllers.”

The Australian today reported an incident report lodged by the air traffic controller on duty stated the Learjet pilot was `”briefly uncontactable” because he was on a different frequency.

The incident report also states the controller was `”concerned” about the risk to northbound air traffic, particularly Jetstar flight JS720.

Mr Gibson said the two aircraft were 15 nautical miles (27km) apart at the time, adding there was no immediate safety issue in terms of a collision.

“Our understanding is the two aircraft were not heading directly towards each other. They were potentially crossing paths … ,” he said.

“There was definitely a minimum altitude of at least 1,000 feet between the two aircraft. The separation distance is quite generous.”

Traffic Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) installed on both planes were not activated and the planes were way beyond the minimum range required to trigger the warning system, he said.

Robert Mason, president of the air traffic controllers’ union, Civil Air, said the incident showed the current safety regime had unacceptable safety levels.

“Aeroplanes passing 15 (nautical) miles apart may seem like a lot … but they are travelling so fast that in some scenarios there can be less than 60 seconds to react and avoid an incident,” he said.
Government body Airservices Australia said the 15 nautical mile separation was three times the required limit in that sector.

There was “no safety occurrence and no breakdown of air traffic control safety standards”, a spokesman said.