The ATSB is inquiring into a ‘Hello Sunshine’ incident on Sunday night when a Thai 777-300 dropped to a dangerously low altitude over Sunshine North while approaching Melbourne Airport at the end of a flight from Bangkok.
The Webtrak altitude of just over 300 metres implies that the height above the roof tops was less than 250 metres. Air traffic controllers warned the Thai pilots they were too low, causing them to climb away and make a second approach.
The ATSB describes the incident as ‘serious’ and expects to conclude its inquiry by October.
The safety investigators has also added a Virgin Australia 737-800 flight between Brisbane and Mackay on July 19 to its growing list of altitude busting inquiries, after what it describes only as an ‘incident’ rather than something more serious, when it failed to comply with airspace procedures while 67 kilometres from the regional airport.
These two notifications follow prompt ATSB preliminary reports into Tiger Airways low flying incidents will approaching Melbourne Airport on June 7, and Avalon Airport on June 30.
Tiger’s domestic Australian operations have been grounded as a threat to public safety since late on July 1, and the airline is currently making efforts to convince the Civil Aviation Safety Authority that it has both the will and capacity to obey Australia’s safety rules in order to fly once more, with the current suspension applying until August 1.
While the current flurry of low flying airliners is being dealt with in a comparatively short period of time, an alarming incident involving a Qantas Cityflyer 767-200 at Sydney Airport on October 26, 2009, remains unresolved.
In that incident, the Qantas flight from Melbourne descended to at least 700 feet without lowering its undercarriage and then performed a go around after an audible warning in the cockpit alerted the two pilots to the danger.
Read the Crikey report here and ask yourself whether or not the ATSB seems to be taking a very long time to deal with an incident that was at least as serious as the two Tiger and Thai incidents.
4 Comments
“after what [the ATSB] describes only as an ‘incident’ rather than something more serious”
I just wanted to point out that following the ICAO definitions the description ‘incident’ is entirely correct, since there was no structural damage, nor were there any fatalities or serious injuries. I suppose one could argue that ‘serious incident’ would be more in order, since the ATSB apparently uses that classification as well, but I’m not familiar with the details of the incident.
Regarding the Qantas incident, the report linked to in the article states that the pilots had already detected the error and the warning only sounded after the go-around had already been initiated. Unless there’s any evidence of an underlying safety problem I’m not sure a go-around from 700 feet (assuming we’re talking above ground level) qualifies as alarming. Perhaps looking for an underlying safety issue is what’s taking the ATSB so long, of course there are plenty of possible reasons that are less favourable for the ATSB as well.
Honestly, Johnny is correct. Incident is the correct aviation term. The alternatives are accidents. It’s aviation 101.
Furthermore, Johnny hit the nail on the head about why its probably taking so long. However, its also worth noting that aviation also has an incredibly high standard of safety, because ATSB and FAA don’t only work on identifying the cause, but also they actively try to prevent the problem happening again (and prevent it happening in advance). If the same priciples were applied to driving, drivers would need to take a test every 2 years, driving in fog would be banned, and before you drove over 100km/h, you’d take an advanced driving test. You’d also be discouraged from driving if you had any personal issues. ATSB are doing an excellent job, and if our government applied the same principles to driving, they could eliminate far more accidents and inconvenience far less drivers.
The ATSB says the Qantas report will be published in September.
The reference to ‘incident’ as distinct from ‘serious incident’ was literally to reinforce the distinction the ATSB made between the lesser gravity of the Mackay incident and the more serious Sunshine North incident.
Ah, ok. I read the article as calling into question why the ATSB had referred to the Mackay incident as only an incident.
It’ll be interesting to see what analysis the ATSB has done in those two years when the report appears in September. Incidentally the offical ICAO regulation is that a preliminary report should be published within one year, though I think that only applies to accidents (for which I’m guessing more budget is available).