Virgin Australia 737-800 lost by air traffic control for 30 minutes by Ben Sandilands
Latest report from Ben. Looks like this could generate a few questions for the senators?
Virgin Australia 737-800 lost by air traffic control for 30 minutes
by Ben Sandilands
Last Friday morning a Virgin Australia 737-800 with 168 seats left Sydney for Brisbane.
Somewhere near Newcastle or perhaps a but further up the track, after the controller responsible for its departure from Sydney had handed over the flight to the officer responsible for most of its cruise north toward Brisbane, the flight was ‘lost.’
Its trace on the air traffic control screens was ‘inhibited’ as the ATSB puts it in its incident notification.
The action that was taken to render this jet airliner an invisible projectile was deliberate, in that it involves a considered and concise physical action, and horrifically unprofessional, and there are hints that an attempt may have been made to prevent the enormity of the event being properly reported, although it has been reported, and an investigation has begun.
It flew at high speed and high altitude through the busiest airspace in Australian skies, between Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane, without anyone in air traffic control, or any of the many jets of varying sizes that would have been under control in the space it was using, having any knowledge of its presence.
The first anyone knew that there was an invisible passenger jet flying toward Brisbane was when a Virgin Australia pilot called traffic control at a point where he or she would have normally expected to hear from the ATC system prior to entering the airspace nearer its destination.
The seriousness of this extraordinary situation isn’t conveyed by the summary posted this afternoon by the ATSB in notifying that the investigation had been initiated.
It was reported that the aircraft’s details were inadvertently inhibited in the Air Traffic Management system for approximately 30 minutes.
There was a loss of separation assurance.
The investigation is continuing.
There is a long and seldom generally reported history of dangerous and incompetent actions by AirServices Australia.
Its record in recent years is indefensibly sub-standard. But this incident represents a new low.
Let’s put it at its simplest.
Airservices is failing to deliver the fundamentals of a safe and secure air traffic control system.
This incident is the clearest of evidence that its standards are totally untrustworthy, and that no airline, foreign or domestic, can truthfully have any confidence that their passengers, their investments, and their brands, are safe in Australian air traffic controlled skies.
We have deteriorated to the level of being a dangerous embarrassment when a 737-800 can fly for half an hour through one of the 10 busiest air routes on the planet without any other aircraft, or the ATC system, having the faintest inkling that it is there, doing something like 850 kilometres an hour, through airspace which includes A380s and 777s as well as a host of airliners of lesser size, any two of which can be destroyed by the inability of a developed country to provide a professional and well managed air traffic control system.
No doubt the usual fawning excuses will be made. But the facts involved in this particular incident ought to be of the gravest of concern to air travellers and the airlines and our political leaders.