{"id":854577,"date":"2026-08-14T04:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854577\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:42:12","slug":"investigation-launched-after-third-sydney-airport-near-miss-in-three-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854577\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation launched after third Sydney Airport near-miss in three weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

A training session was underway inside the Sydney<\/a> Airport control tower on Sunday when two passenger jets came dangerously close, just hours after a separate near-miss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating a previously unreported incident<\/a> involving two Boeing 737 planes: a Virgin flight bound for Perth and a Qantas plane en route to Uluru. It is the third safety incident at the airport in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The two planes reportedly stopped about one kilometre from each other.\u00a0Supplied<\/p>\n

On Sunday, a Virgin 737 was cleared to take off<\/a> at 10am. But as the pilots accelerated, they saw a Qantas 737 crossing the runway right in front of them.<\/p>\n

The Qantas crew reported they had also been cleared by air traffic control to cross.<\/p>\n

ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said the crews on both flights identified the conflict moments after the clearance was given.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Virgin flight crew discontinued their takeoff shortly after spooling up their engines and air traffic control cancelled the clearance at about the same time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mitchell noted that the two planes were separated by about one kilometre and confirmed that an investigation was launched as soon as the safety concern was reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our third investigation into an incident involving an aircraft [at Sydney Airport] over a two-week period.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that training in the control tower at the time may explain why it took so long to notify officials, as the event might have initially been classified as a \u201ctraining incident\u201d rather than an immediate safety concern.<\/p>\n

The Virgin pilots slammed on the brakes, coming to a complete stop about 1 kilometre from the intersection just as air traffic control radioed to cancel their take-off clearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident occurred when a Virgin Australia 737 was cleared by air traffic control for take-off from Sydney\u2019s runway 34L,\u201d the ATSB said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\"Summer<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the third serious runway incident at Australia\u2019s busiest airport in as many weeks.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the crew applied thrust for take-off, they observed a Qantas 737 crossing the runway ahead of them on Taxiway Lima.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is the third serious runway incident at Australia\u2019s<\/a> busiest airport<\/a> in as many weeks.<\/p>\n

The close call happened only hours after another incident at 7.20am that same morning.<\/p>\n

A Jetstar Airbus A320 was forced to hit the brakes on the tarmac to avoid a towed Qatar Airways Boeing 777.<\/p>\n

The sudden stop knocked a flight attendant off her feet, resulting in minor wrist injuries.<\/p>\n

Two Airservices Australia staff members have since been stood down over that incident.<\/p>\n

Just weeks earlier, on July 27, two Qantas planes nearly collided after air traffic control cleared a Boeing 737 from Queenstown to cross a runway as a QantasLink flight from Canberra<\/a> was touching down.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging similarities between the three incidents, Mitchell stressed they would be treated as isolated cases.<\/p>\n

He noted that in most instances, it was the \u201cwell-trained and well-qualified pilots\u201d who identified the risks and halted the aircraft.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The ATSB is investigating a previously unreported incident involving two Boeing 737 passenger jets: a Virgin flight bound for Perth, and a Qantas plane en route to Uluru.\u00a0iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a concern to us that it even got to that stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all three cases, a line of defence kicked in, as it should, to stop this situation from escalating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we know is that three incidents have occurred that shouldn\u2019t have occurred. We need to understand why and what we can recommend, ensuring we don\u2019t see a reoccurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell said that flight incursions are becoming a concern at airports worldwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see about 60 of them a year in Australia, generally though they\u2019re not at major airports, and they\u2019re not with large high-capacity regular public transport.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, Transport Minister Catherine King<\/a> summoned Airservices Australia chief Rob Sharp to address the string of incidents and ongoing air traffic controller staffing shortages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe delays and disruptions we have seen at Sydney Airport over the last three days have been unacceptable,\u201d King said, calling for improved rostering practices to address controller fatigue and unplanned leave.<\/p>\n

ATSB investigators have begun interviewing air traffic controllers and flight crews, and are gathering recorded flight data as part of their investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A training session was underway inside the Sydney Airport control tower on Sunday when two passenger jets came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-854577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}