Why did the 737 need to go through the E airspace?
Maintaining F190 til 40Nm Melbourne, and then trying to meet STAR requirements and setup for a straight-in ILS is pushing it a bit for a slippery B737.
Is this considered an acceptable level of service, at 10:00 am on a weekday?
Depends ... but in this case, the controller had to identify the aircraft, get his mode C on and verified, take flight details 'cause the pilot didn't submit any! coordinate clearances with TMA especially since the wx was poor ... and, maybe he had to separate other traffic! At 10:00 am near Melb, these weren't the only two aircraft in the sky!
why didn't he simply ask the C421 to do a orbit
Maybe because of the above factors and possibly because the BE20 was just behind and closing .... that's the BE20 the ATSB said was not a factor ... but which the controller was concerned enough about to instruct to descend
The BE20 .... occupied some of the controllers traffic management strategies
Exactly ... such as separation from VOZ
The ATSB report fails to mention any of the other factors involved in this (choke) incident.
.... but there are/will be other reports that do .... trouble is ... we're not likely to see them.
What can we learn from this incident?
Mixing jets on climb/descent and VFR lighties is damned scary!