Australian air traffic control ‘loses’ large jet for hours
April 9, 2012 – 12:36 pm, by Ben Sandilands
In the early hours of Saturday 31 March Australia’s profitable but increasingly dangerous air traffic control system run by AirServices Australia ‘lost’ a Garuda Indonesia Airbus A330-200 with 222 seats for some hours while it was in Australian airspace on a flight from Bali to Sydney.
The situation apparently arose because of a staffing shortage in the air navigation service providers Brisbane control centre and communications or administrative failures which are now being investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
As a result, the Garuda flight, which the system had somehow lost sight of, was cruising unknown to controllers on a general south-easterly heading at 39,000 feet while an Air Asia X A330-300, with fitted with 377 seats, was cruising at 38,000 feet in an opposing north-westerly heading toward Kuala Lumpur, and at some stage while both were in the same area of the outback skies near the remote Curtin airport, the Air Asia X flight was authorized to climb to 40,000 feet, or right through the cruise level assigned to the Garuda flight after its departure from Denpasar.
The general sequence of events outlined to Plane Talking is that AirServices Australia in Brisbane took down the airspace around Curtin for some five hours soon after midnight Brisbane time on 31 March, declaring it a TRA or Temporary Restricted Area, after it couldn’t find two qualified air traffic controllers to meet a roster requirement.
In a TRA aircraft are responsible for arranging their own safe separation, a procedure which relies on all aircraft in the area listening to and talking to other aircraft on the correct frequency.
However for reasons that have not been determined, the Garuda flight was either left unaware of the TRA, or otherwise failed to gain approval to enter it, meaning no-one else would have even expected it to be there, somewhere.
When AirServices Australia found enough qualified staff to lift the TRA and bring it back under fully controlled separation the controller assigned to it noticed that there were details shown in his display concerning a Garuda flight that if it had left Bali when scheduled should be within his area.
Attempts by the controller to raise the Garuda flight were unsuccessful, and calls to Indonesian ATC were said to have been unable to determine if in fact it had even left for Australia as scheduled.
Soon after that the Garuda flight sought clearance to enter airspace controlled by Melbourne from a position in the airspace that should have been controlled by Brisbane.
Until shortly before that call this meant that ATC directions given to a number of international flights crossing the inland skies of the continent had been made without any knowledge or consideration of the movements of an additional large airliner.
It is believed to have been at this point that Air Asia X was told to climb from 38,000 feet to 40,000 feet. It is not clear whether or how it was known it was safe to this. The rule for passing through the altitude level of another jet when aircraft are subject to radio control and not within radar range is that at least 10 minutes must have elapsed after their positions have passed each other.
There are some very important factual and procedural details to be clarified by the ATSB investigation. If this was a trivial matter there wouldn’t be an investigation.
In the expectation that efforts will now be made to label this story scaremongering, several matters need to be keep in sight.
For Australian ATC to ‘lose’ a 222 seat scheduled airliner for several hours in a supposedly first world country because it can’t even staff its air navigation system or keep tabs on a flight is suggestive of criminal incompetence in AirServices Australia’s management. You don’t just lose airliners.
The responsible minister, Anthony Albanese, has already caused an ATSB inquiry to commence into the nature and frequency of AirService Australia’s record of recent failures in this matter.
There is a series of ATSB reports in which the failure of AirServices Australia to complete its recurrent training obligations or otherwise ensure the competency of its staff have been identified, and
Australia’s airlines have for some time been alarmed by the diminished quality and reliability of AirServices Australia, and have said so, on the public record.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalk...jet-for-hours/
Its only a matter of time. When will Albo do something about this organization
