Qantas Pilots Avoided Mid-Air Catastrophe
TWO Qantas jets were forced to take evasive action over South Australia yesterday after an air-traffic controller gave one of the aircraft permission to change altitude near the flight path of the other.
The Weekend Australian understands the wide-body Airbus - one travelling from Perth to Sydney, the other in the opposite direction - came within vertically of each other.
Aircraft are supposed to maintain a separation of ft vertically and five nautical miles horizontally.
A mid-air catastrophe was averted when a traffic collision-avoidance system was activated on one of the planes, directing the pilot to take action.
However, the other plane's warning system did not go off and Qantas is now investigating the apparent malfunction.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the incident and will request radar data and tapes of conversations between air-traffic control and the aircraft.
Airservices Australia confirmed yesterday an air traffic controller had been stood down pending the investigation, a standard procedure in these kinds of incidents.
The traffic collision-avoidance system monitors air space around an aircraft for other aircraft and warns the pilots when there is a threat of mid-air collision. In serious cases the system instructs the pilot on what evasive action to take.
Flight QF581 from Sydney to Perth was flying at and QF from Perth to Sydney was ft on converging courses near Adelaide about when the crew of requested a change in altitude.
An air-traffic controller gave permission for an ascent to and the pilot had started to make the change when the controller gave instructions to return to ft and maintain altitude.
By that time, however, the TCAS had raised the alarm on the other aircraft, apparently prompting it to climb.
Qantas said its pilots had years of experience and handled the situation as they were trained to do. "Indications are that the loss of separation occurred when one of the Qantas aircraft received clearance to climb from air-traffic control," a spokesman said.
"Our pilots followed standard operating procedures in re-establishing the required separation distance following the alert from the on-board notification system. There was no impact to passengers."
Passenger and regular flyer Graeme Vincent, of Perth, was on the plane flying to Sydney and said there was a noticeable change in engine thrust and the plane accelerated strongly.
"Sometimes when a plane is increasing altitude just a little bit you can vaguely feel the engines, but this time it was really strong," he said. "It was enough to give me a bit of a fright."
Passenger Janet McLean, who was on the other flight, told the ABC: "There was a sensation of certainly dropping down, like one drop and then another drop, and then we must have just levelled back out."
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