Near miss in the air over
NT (AUstralia)
A failure in air traffic control
planning left two airliners on a collision course over the Northern Territory
with just minutes to spare, the latest air safety investigation
reveals.
A Qantas 737 and an Air China A330 were on converging flight paths and flying at the same altitude when, during a handover between air traffic controllers, there was no plan established to keep the airliners from flying into each other.
On April 6, the Qantas plane was flying from Sydney to Darwin, while the Air China plane was heading from Melbourne to Shanghai.
Both aircraft were flying at 36,000 feet, with their paths set to converge over Tindal in the Northern Territory at 1.44pm local time.
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A Qantas 737 and an Air China A330 were on converging flight paths and flying at the same altitude when, during a handover between air traffic controllers, there was no plan established to keep the airliners from flying into each other.
On April 6, the Qantas plane was flying from Sydney to Darwin, while the Air China plane was heading from Melbourne to Shanghai.
Both aircraft were flying at 36,000 feet, with their paths set to converge over Tindal in the Northern Territory at 1.44pm local time.
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As the Air China plane approached
the Tindal airspace its crew radioed air traffic controllers at Brisbane to
report their position.
A minute later, one air traffic controller handed over to a colleague, in the middle of which the Qantas crew radioed in their position, acknowledged by the first controller and listened into by the second.
But that's as far as it went.
The two airliners "were on converging tracks at the same flight level [altitude] and the controller had not established a plan to ensure separation would be maintained", investigators said.
At 1.42pm - two minutes before the planes were set to collide over Tindal - an alarm went off on the controller's screen, warning the planes were just 5 nautical miles (9km) apart, at the same altitude, and closing.
The official minimum safe distance between the aircraft should have been 5nm horizontally and 1000 feet vertically.
Realising what triggered the alert, the controller immediately instructed the Qantas airliner to climb 1000 feet, and the Air China pilots to descend 1000 feet.
By the time there was 1000 vertical feet of air between them, the distance between them had shrunk to 3.5nm (6.5km), and the clock was showing 1.43pm - a minute to spare.
It's the latest official report into an air traffic control failure.
A minute later, one air traffic controller handed over to a colleague, in the middle of which the Qantas crew radioed in their position, acknowledged by the first controller and listened into by the second.
But that's as far as it went.
The two airliners "were on converging tracks at the same flight level [altitude] and the controller had not established a plan to ensure separation would be maintained", investigators said.
At 1.42pm - two minutes before the planes were set to collide over Tindal - an alarm went off on the controller's screen, warning the planes were just 5 nautical miles (9km) apart, at the same altitude, and closing.
The official minimum safe distance between the aircraft should have been 5nm horizontally and 1000 feet vertically.
Realising what triggered the alert, the controller immediately instructed the Qantas airliner to climb 1000 feet, and the Air China pilots to descend 1000 feet.
By the time there was 1000 vertical feet of air between them, the distance between them had shrunk to 3.5nm (6.5km), and the clock was showing 1.43pm - a minute to spare.
It's the latest official report into an air traffic control failure.
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