Air Safety Chief Investigates Sydney Airport Incident Reporting Delay

Air safety authorities are looking into three incidents at Sydney Airport.

In short:

The head of the Air Transport Safety Bureau says it took four days to know about a third safety incident at Sydney Airport.

This happened a few hours after a Jetstar crew member was hurt in a near collision on the tarmac with a Qatar Airlines flight.

The third incident involved a plane crossing the runway more than a kilometre away from where another flight was getting ready to take off on Sunday.

The nation's air safety boss is asking why it took four days for another safety incident at Sydney Airport to be reported to investigators.

The Air Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner, Angus Mitchell, told the ABC he only knew about Sunday's incident on Thursday at lunchtime.

The most recent incident on Sunday involved two planes more than a kilometre away crossing the same runway before taking off.

Air Services Australia said the two aircraft were never close and is working with the ATSB to look into the incident.

The two aircraft didn't come close to each other, but it shouldn't have happened, Mr Mitchell said on 702 ABC Sydney.

Chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said the ATSB would look at what led to the incidents.

We are trying to understand the delay in reporting to us.

The delay might have been because of confusion about whether the incident was a training exercise.

It's not unusual for trainees to get experience in live environments under supervision.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there needs to be immediate reporting of any incident.

Any investigation and necessary actions should be taken after an incident.

People who use aviation expect to be safe, and we are very careful about these issues.

Failure is rarely due to one thing.

Mr Mitchell said there are many lines of defence in an emergency situation like the recent incidents.

We find that it's rarely one thing that goes wrong, multiple things need to go wrong for an accident to happen.

In the latest incident, a traffic controller cancelled the take-off clearance at the same time the pilot realized there was a potential conflict.

This comes after two near-misses at Sydney Airport in a fortnight.

The first incident on July 27 involved a Qantas Link and Qantas flight avoiding a collision.

The Jetstar flight had to stop on the tarmac to avoid colliding with a Qatar Airlines flight on Sunday.

The second incident, which happened three hours before the latest one, saw a Jetstar crew member hurt after pilots had to stop quickly to avoid a Qatar Airlines flight.

Two ground crew members were stood down and tested for alcohol and drugs as part of the ATSB investigation.

The incidents led to calls for change from the Civil Air, which says there are not enough air traffic controllers in Australia.

The near-misses resulted in Airservices Australia CEO Rob Sharp being summoned to Canberra to meet with Transport Minister Catherine King.

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