{"id":568857,"date":"2026-08-14T14:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568857\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T14:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T14:08:11","slug":"third-australian-airport-runway-blunder-sparks-reporting-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/568857\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Australian airport runway blunder sparks reporting row"},"content":{"rendered":"

A third blunder in as many weeks at a major Australian airport has sparked a reporting row between the safety bureau and a flight services chief.<\/p>\n

A Virgin Australia jet was cleared to take off last Sunday but swiftly forced to cancel, as a Qantas plane already had permission to cross the runway 1.3km away at Sydney Airport.<\/p>\n

The incident was not reported for four days, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said, as Airservices Australia contended it did not meet notification thresholds.<\/p>\n

News of a third incident comes after the high-profile near-miss<\/a> earlier last Sunday when a Jetstar pilot was forced to brake to avoid a Qatar Airways plane<\/a> as the Middle Eastern jet was towed across the tarmac, giving a flight attendant minor injuries.<\/p>\n

That came after an episode on July 27 when two Qantas planes were cleared to approach a runway at the same time.<\/p>\n

On Friday, ATSB chief Angus Mitchell confirmed his body was investigating the Virgin Australia-Qantas incident from last Sunday.<\/p>\n

“It’s really important we have a thorough understanding of what occurred, the environment it occurred in, so any recommendations we make are actually going to lead to improvements,” he told reporters in Canberra.<\/p>\n

Airservices Australia reported the incident on Thursday and Mitchell said he was “still trying to understand” the hold-up.<\/p>\n

He noted training underway in the air traffic control tower may have affected procedures.<\/p>\n

“It is an incident, regardless. We do know we had two laden aircraft both given clearance on the same runway, that reaches the threshold for an incident for us,” he said. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The air traffic control tower rises above Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport (file image). (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

Airservices Australia Rob Sharp disagreed when he spoke to reporters later on Friday.<\/p>\n

“Firstly, controllers immediately rescinded the clearance, they recognised there was a Qantas aircraft 1.3km away approaching the runway,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Secondly, the aircraft remained stationary; and thirdly the distance of 1.3km is quite substantial \u2026 however we’re quite open to reviewing the data that surrounds it.”<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there had to be immediate reporting of any incident.<\/p>\n

“We have an extraordinarily safe record here in Australia \u2026 we’ll continue to make sure that we are very vigilant,” he said.<\/p>\n

NSW Premier Chris Minns said safety had to take precedent at the capital’s airport.<\/p>\n

“As regrettable as it is, flights are going to have to be cancelled if safety is compromised at all,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The main thing is we’ve just got to get those air traffic controllers trained up and deployed as quickly as possible.”<\/p>\n

Civil Air president Scott Nugent previously told AAP Sydney Airport’s control tower staff were stretched thin. <\/p>\n

“They’re just not putting enough in … we can’t just put people in and expect them to be working the next day,” Nugent said.<\/p>\n

Sharp previously said the organisation was recruiting more than it ever had been, but was competing for resources. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A third blunder in as many weeks at a major Australian airport has sparked a reporting row between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1081,85,138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-568857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-accident","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}