The New Zealand Herald
Monday May 24, 2004
CAA still awaiting information from over near-miss
24.05.2004 - 4.00pm
UPDATE - New Zealand civil aviation officials are still awaiting information from Indonesian investigators about a near mid-air collision more than two months ago.
The incident, for which air traffic control error has been cited as the likely cause, happened over a remote part of Indonesia and involved an Air NZ and a Qantas Boeing 767.
The two planes were carrying 268 people between them when they got perilously close to each other off the coast of Irian Jaya on March 22.
The pilots took evasive action after being alerted by on-board computers.
While the incident was revealed by The Australian newspaper on Saturday, the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said Air NZ pilots' reported it when they landed.
The CAA in turn informed Indonesian authorities at the time, but had not heard back from them, spokesman Bill Sommer said today.
"A lot depends on the complexity of the investigation, but we would probably have expected to have heard something by now," he said.
"We are not planning to send them a hurry-up, but we will monitor it. It happened in their airspace and it is their investigation, under international convention."
Mr Sommer said it appeared human error on the part of traffic control might was a factor.
"The area was outside radar coverage, so they were using procedural techniques to separate the aircraft," he said.
"The route is a commonly used one and this is an isolated incident. The back-up systems we have on the aeroplanes now are very effective in providing that extra defence."
The two aircraft were reported to have got as close as 125m vertically and 800m horizontally, when separation of 305m and five nautical miles (9.2km) respectively was required.
Air NZ chief pilot David Morgan, who is head of the airline's safety and operations, described the incident as significant and believed some part of the air traffic control system had failed.
He also said the traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) on board the planes was a "wonderful device".
"It alerts the pilots to a potential threat, warns of a threat becoming a conflict and then actually resolves the conflict so the pilots can respond.
"The two computers talk to each other, so one aeroplane will be told to do one thing and the other aeroplane will be told to do something else."
Mr Morgan said the Air NZ pilots had not been not emotionally affected by the incident.
"It wasn't a non-event, but they weren't shaken. They followed the procedures they were trained to do."
- NZPA