Jetstar and Singapore Airlines planes have near miss in Territory skies

A JETSTAR and a Singapore Airlines jet have had a close shave in Northern Territory skies.

A JETSTAR and a Singapore Airlines jet have had a close shave in Northern Territory skies.

The Australian Air Transport Safety Bureau said the incident occurred about 75km east-south-east of Tindal, near Katherine, at 2.19pm on Thursday.

The Singapore Airlines A330 aircraft was flying from Brisbane to Singapore, while Jetstar pilots were flying an A320 plane from Darwin to Brisbane.

An investigation will examine their ‘loss of separation’ after an air-traffic controller cleared the Jetstar aircraft to climb through the Singapore Airlines aircraft’s level.

ATSB spokesman Michael Walker said there was limited information because analysis of exactly how close the planes were would not begin until next week.

“We have to review the information from the radar and voice communication (recordings), and then talk to controllers,” he said.

Mr Walker said the aircraft were still far away enough from each other that deviation was unnecessary.

“There are over 100 of these events each year, and they happen for a number of different reasons,” he said.

“We might only investigate two or three each year, but we still felt this was worth an investigation.”

A loss of separation is considered a hazard in airspace — in Australia, planes must stay away from each other at a distance of at least 1000 feet (304.8m) vertically and 5-nautical miles (9.26km) horizontally.

The last major incident was when two Qantas Airbus A330 aircraft suffered a loss of separation over Adelaide in September last year.