Maybe, before anyone gets too excited, we should await the incident reports to understand what actually happened in this case and draw any conclusions.
Mr. Lang is attributed as having said:
He says the new airspace regulations are to blame.
Meanwhile, the Virgin Blue spokesman is attributed as having said:
"We cannot say at this point in time whether these events were in any way related to the new traffic rules.
Surely it couldn't be that the ATC professional association is seeking to leverage any / every incident which occurs post 27 November to generate sensational news coverage, and seeking to link it to NAS to suit a particular agenda, coud it? Could it?
And look at the near salacious excitement that this has seemed to generate amongst many on this thread, climaxing with
RTB RFN's ramblings ... something about
No RADAR... Lower use or availability of transponder... E airspace - unannounced VFR (including at FL's)... No talking - naughty naughty
Lets take these one at a time: Was it within radar coverage? Presumably so as it was within 55NM of sMelbourne. Did the incident occur in Class E, and if so where was that fact reported? Was the VFR unannounced / not talking on the radio? Have not similar incidents occured before, pre- NAS?
I suppose it may be frustrating and inconvenient when the facts don't fit your argument: but let's not let that stop us, eh boys!? I suggest that there may not yet be enough factual information available in the public domain, as presented so far, for pro- or anti-NAS to claim that this incident proves anything other than a concerted effort on the part of Mr. Lang to defend his colleague (admirable, for sure) and to try and simultaneously leverage the incident to advance the anti-NAS stance of his organisation.
That this is primarily a political rather than a safety issue is very clearly exposed by Mr Lang's final quotation above:
"My biggest concern is that the air traffic controller involved is going to be the scapegoat out of this whole system, but unfortunately this is an outcome of the National Airspace System that's been recently introduced and the person that's responsible for this is the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, John Anderson," he said.
Should the incident turn out to NOT be linked to NAS, then this tack may well back-fire. Vice versa, if NAS is proven to be a causal factor in the incident, then those who are pro-NAS will have to accept it. Until then, it might be smarter to keep an open mind.
All the best,
Andy
