Nearly 50 flights were forced to divert last Friday after a Virgin Australia pilot raised alarms around live firing exercises from a Chinese war ship in the Tasman Sea, it has been revealed.
Airservices Australia CEO Rob Sharp told a parliamentary hearing that the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) signalled it was conducting hazardous drills in busy international airspace.
However, the first Australian authorities heard of the exercises was when the Virgin pilot picked up warnings mid-flight via an emergency radio frequency not monitored by Airservices Australia.
“It was in fact a Virgin Australia aircraft that advised one of our air traffic controllers that a foreign warship was broadcasting that they were conducting live firing 300 nautical miles east off our coast,” Sharp told the parliamentary hearing.
Airservices Australia initiated a “hazard alert” at 10am, notifying all flights in the area within two minutes of the potential danger.
Deputy CEO Peter Curran said that the Virgin pilot transmissions directly from one of the Chinese warships through an ‘international guard frequency’ not typically monitored by air traffic controllers.
“We can’t hear what was said, so the pilot of the Virgin aircraft heard what was said from the Chinese vessel, relayed that back to air traffic control [who] then passed that through our system and started giving hazard alerting to all aircraft on the frequency,” Curran said.
“Just after 10am our national operations centre contacted Defence Joint Operations Command and advised of the situation, bearing in mind at that stage we didn’t know whether it was a potential hoax or real, we simply passed the information through.”
Emirates warned off by Chinese military, as Qantas and Air NZ divert flights
An Emirates flight bound for New Zealand was also directly warned by Chinese warships about the exercise at 10:18am, with Curran confirming that Emirates flight UAE3HJ had been advised to avoid the airspace.
“An Emirates flight was also in contact with the warships, and which was advised that they were conducting live firing between 0930 and 14:00 [local time],” he told the committee.
Throughout Friday, 49 flights in total were rerouted, with trans-Tasman flight plans continuing to be altered over the weekend as a precautionary measure. Officials confirmed that normal operations resumed on Monday morning once the PLA-N taskforce had moved further south away from key flight corridors.
Last week, Defence Minister Richard Marles criticised Beijing for failing to provide adequate notice of the exercise, telling ABC Radio Perth, “we became aware of the issue during the course of the day”.
