Open Letter to Channel Seven
Dear Channel Seven,
I was very disappointed to watch your interview with Mr. Dick Smith on the Channel Seven Sunday Night production on the flight of aircraft VH-MDX which crashed in the Barrington Tops in August 1981. In the programme, you denigrate the military air traffic controllers at Williamtown and I am left very concerned about an honest, objective and balanced view. Dick Smith stated in the programme that the RAAF ‘sent these five people to their deaths’. On the Channel Seven Sunrise programme on Monday morning, Dick Smith also stated that RAAF Controllers were ‘concrete minded people’.
You should be aware that the whole truth was not told in your programme and you gave neither the Department of Defence nor any former military air traffic controller any opportunity to provide any balance to the story. You will be interested to know that despite Dick Smith’s statements about the failure of Williamtown to facilitate clearance through the Williamtown airspace for VH-MDX, the actual voice transcript of coordination between Sydney Flight Service Unit and Williamtown Tower that evening, indicates that Williamtown Tower approved the transit of MDX through the Williamtown airspace immediately the clearance was requested by Sydney Flight Service. ‘Why not’ was the immediate response from Williamtown when Sydney Flight Service requested an airways clearance.
To confirm my assertion, the actual transcript of audio recordings from the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) records, available to the public in the National Archives is as follows:
In the above exchange, Sydney Flight Service (FIS 5) provides Williamtown Tower (WM) with the full flight details of MDX and asks if he can expect a clearance. Williamtown responds immediately - ‘why not’. A discussion then follows with a possible change of altitude because an earlier aircraft (VH-AZC) has already been cleared to transit Williamtown airspace at 8000 feet tracking from Taree to Williamtown. A confliction is possible so WM offers FIS 5 an alternate altitude for MDX of 9000 feet or 7000 feet to ensure that appropriate separation between MDX and AZC is maintained.
This immediate clearance issued by WM flies in the face of your programme assertion and Dick Smith’s statements that the RAAF ‘sent these five people to their deaths’.
Then:
In the above exchange, Sydney FIS 5 asks Sydney Air Traffic Control Sector 1 (S1) for an onwards clearance for MDX to enter the Sydney controlled airspace after the Williamtown transit is complete. S1 responds that the clearance will not be available because Sydney control area is not Night VMC (Night Visual Meteorological Conditions - in other words a pilot must fly visually and clear of cloud). So the clearance issued by Williamtown Tower to Sydney Flight Service was never transmitted to the aircraft due to Sydney Sector 1 involvement. As a result, three minutes later at 0856, MDX, with no clearance issued by FIS 5 through Williamtown airspace, tracked from Taree to Craven then Singleton and into bad weather where some 45 minutes later the aircraft crashed in the Barrington Tops.
None of this aspect of the MDX flight and Air Traffic Coordination was mentioned by Dick Smith or your programme. You seem to accept the inflammatory comments as the gospel truth however at no stage did you question or challenge the information provided by Dick Smith.
As Dick Smith is portrayed by the general public as a great Australian and an aviation expert, when he speaks, people listen and believe him. So the perception that the public would now have of the Williamtown (RAAF) controllers and (by association) every current Defence and former Defence controllers is that they (the controllers) have no interest in facilitating civil aircraft through military airspace. This is so far from the truth as military controllers at all Defence bases do their utmost to facilitate civil aircraft movements through military airspace.
To illustrate my point, in 1991, 10 years after the MDX accident, as an RAAF Reserve Officer, I was tasked by the Department of Defence in Canberra to travel to Williamtown specifically to collect data about civil aircraft transitting Williamtown airspace. During that task, I quantified the number of civil flights which requested transit clearance through Williamtown military airspace over a period of twelve days and what percentages were actually approved. The result of my research indicated that of 263 transit aircraft:
· 94.68% of civil transits were cleared through the airspace as requested.
· 3.04% of civil transits were cleared through the airspace via an amended clearance.
· 2.28% of civil transits were not cleared due to military traffic.
So, 97.72% of civil aircraft who requested transit of Williamtown airspace received approval. That is a totally different story from the one portrayed in your programme.
A significant public apology from your programme and an acknowledgement of the erroneous information portrayed would be greatly appreciated by many hundreds of current and former military air traffic controllers whose professionalism has been unfairly maligned by your biased programme.
Yours sincerely,
Harry Howard
Former Military Air Traffic Controller