A commercial jet from Hong Kong came within minutes of a mid-air crash with an Australian flight in 2009 after air traffic control failed to notice they were on collision course, a report found Friday. The Melbourne-bound Cathay Pacific A330 was two minutes from smashing head-on into a Melbourne-Darwin Virgin flight over Australia's arid north when it radioed in to request advice on the plane, which was directly in its path.
"The flight crews of both aircraft reported that they considered the situation to be significant enough to commence diversions right of track without obtaining clearance prior to their respective manoeuvres," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said, handing down its final report into the December 2009 incident. It found the air traffic controller on duty had failed to identify the problem and had been insufficiently trained to recognise potential collisions "particularly in relation to opposite direct traffic".
He also had received just 11 weeks initial training in recognition of his prior studies and started "final field training with a level of knowledge and skills that was below the required standard," it said. The ATSB also found that the controller was monitoring a "large volume of airspace" at the time and using a wide-range screen rather than one appropriate for spotting the type of collisions he was almost faced with. The planes were just 55 kilometres or two minutes apart when the Cathay crew radioed the tower for advice.