Virgin Australia pilot alerted authorities to Chinese live fire drills off Australian coast

Details about how Chinese warships were conducting live fire drills off Australia’s east coast have been revealed.

A Virgin Australia pilot is responsible for alerting authorities to Chinese live fire drills off Australia’s east coast last week, a Senate Estimates hearing has revealed.

The head of Airservices Australia, which manages air traffic, also revealed the exercises forced dozens of flights to change course, meaning the impact was significantly higher than previously thought.

A trio of Chinese warships lurking in the Tasman Sea carried out the drills on Friday and Saturday in international waters between Australia and New Zealand.

The Albanese government has formally protested, both in Beijing and in Canberra — China has in turn accused Australia of making “hyped” claims and “unreasonable accusations”.

Fronting senators on Monday night, Airservices Australia chief executive Rob Sharp said the Virgin pilot alerted his agency after overhearing chatter from the ships while flying nearby on Friday.

A trio of Chinese warships lurking of Australia’s east coast conducted live fire drills last week. Picture: NewsWire / Australian Defence Force

“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,” he said.

“So that’s how we first found out about the issue.”

Deputy chief executive Peter Curran said the Chinese ships used an emergency radio channel to broadcast their activity.

The frequency is monitored by pilots but not air traffic control.

“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,” Mr 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.”

The officials said 49 flights were diverted, with some aircraft in the air when they had to find alternative routing.

How many of the planes were carrying passengers remains unclear, but at least two commercial flights were among them.

“It is a relatively busy time of the day. There are a number of flight paths that go from Sydney across to various places in New Zealand and from Brisbane, they converge to the southeast there,” Mr Curran said.

He also added that the drills breached norms.

Typically, ships give 24-48 hours official notice, as opposed to mere hours and no government-to-government communication.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Australian Defence Force was aware of the live fire drills. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

The revelation that a commercial pilot alerted Airservices Australia rather than the Australian Defence Force (ADF) raises questions about who knew what when.

The ADF first revealed it was tracking the Chinese ships off the Queensland coast nearly two weeks ago.

They have since navigated down the east coast, passing within 270km of Sydney.

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday dodged on whether he was concerned Defence did not alert Airservices Australia first.

“The Australian Defence Force was certainly aware and I’ve spoken with the Chief of the Defence Force about what has occurred,” the Prime Minister told reporters.

“Australia has had frigates, both monitoring by sea and by air, of the presence in the region of these Chinese vessels.”