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Australia’s transport authorities said Friday they were investigating what went wrong after three near-misses in less than two weeks at Sydney Airport, including two in one day.<\/p>\n
A Virgin Australia 737 had been cleared for take-off by air traffic control on Sunday morning when the crew saw a Qantas plane crossing the runway ahead of them, the country’s transport safety investigator said.<\/p>\n
The crew brought the plane to a stop about a kilometre from the other aircraft, which had also been cleared to taxi across the runway.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, a Jetstar pilot was forced to apply the brakes suddenly to avoid crashing into a Qatar Airways jet.<\/p>\n
They came after two Qantas planes also avoided a collision on July 27 after they had been cleared for takeoff.<\/p>\n
“I can reassure the travelling public that we will consider any organisational or systemic issues that may have contributed to these occurrences, and will do so in a comprehensive and timely manner,” Transport Safety Bureau Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said Friday.<\/p>\n
“We look at all the evidence, how busy the airport was, what was the manning in the tower at the time,” he added.<\/p>\n
Questions have also been raised as to why it took so long for the incident to be reported.<\/p>\n
Mitchell said there had been a “supervisory or a training situation taking place” on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We do know, as I’ve mentioned before, that this is a significant, I guess, ramping up period for air services in terms of recruiting, training, and qualifying air traffic controllers,” he added.<\/p>\n
“What we do know is three incidents occurred that shouldn’t have occurred. We need to understand why.”<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also called for an investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n
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