Safety fears at three major airports with military air traffic controllers

A FORMER Qantas chief pilot has called for an urgent inquiry into safety levels at three major Australian airports.

Former Qantas chief pilot Chris Manning.

A FORMER Qantas chief pilot has called for an urgent inquiry into safety levels at three major Australian airports managed by military air traffic controllers after figures revealed air force controllers had a poorer safety record than their civilian counterparts.

Chris Manning says the government must investigate why Darwin, Townsville and Newcastle airports have a disproportionately high number of “loss of separation” incidents. The term is used when passenger planes pass too close together, increasing the risk of a mid-air collision.

Mr Manning, Qantas’s chief pilot between 2002 and 2008 and one of the most respected figures in Australian aviation, said while the three airports were not unsafe, they were less safe than the country’s other major airports and this was unacceptable.

“It is safe but, according to the Australian Transport Safety ­Bur­eau report, there are more incidents per (flight) movement in military airspace,” he told The Australian. “There should be no difference in the level of safety at all towered aerodromes that civil aircraft use.”

Mr Manning’s public warning is highly unusual and reflects the privately held concerns by many pilots that Australia’s unusual system of having military personnel controlling civilian passenger planes at Darwin, Townsville and Newcastle is flawed.

Military controllers are not subject to oversight from Civil ­Aviation Safety Authority.

Mr Manning is angry that the government has all but ignored a damning ATSB report from October last year which found that military (air traffic controllers) were involved in a disproportionate number of safety incidents.

The report found that between 2008 and 2012 military controllers were involved in 36 per cent of all loss of separation incidents despite controlling only 25 per cent of aircraft traffic near terminals.

“This ATSB investigation concluded that civilian aircraft have a disproportionate rate of loss of separation incidents which leads to a higher risk of collision in ­military terminal area airspace in general and all airspace around Darwin and Williamtown (Newcastle) in particular,” the ATSB said.

The military controls all traffic at its 11 air bases around the country, but because Darwin, Newcastle and Townsville are adjacent to air bases, military controllers are also responsible for civil aircraft at these locations despite the fact that civil aircraft account for 94 per cent of traffic at Darwin and 88 per cent at Townsville.

“Some military aerodromes, such as Darwin and Townsville, are primarily used for civilian traffic and some, such as Williamtown (Newcastle), act as an important regional airport and the evidence indicates those civil aircraft are exposed to a higher level of risk compared with equivalent civilian-operated airports,” the ATSB said.

Mr Manning said this report had been largely ignored despite its potentially grave findings.

“I find it difficult to believe that an ATSB report that highlights safety issues has received scant attention — makes you wonder why they bother doing a report if there’s no obvious desire to address the real (safety) problems raised,” Mr Manning said.

He has called for a three-person independent inquiry to examine the issues raised by the ATSB report and devise a safer and more transparent system to ensure the safety of all Australians who fly in and out of Darwin, Newcastle and Townsville.

Mr Manning has also called for the country’s 250 military air traffic controllers to be subject to safety auditing by CASA in the same way that the country’s civil air traffic controllers are.

“ I would much prefer to see one standard that was audited by CASA throughout Australia,” he said.

Defence has strongly defended the standards of its controllers and disputes the ATSB claim that civil aircraft are exposed to a higher level of risk at the military-controlled airports of Darwin, Newcastle and Townsville.

“Defence disagrees with the findings of the ATSB’s Loss of Separation report,” a Defence spokesman said this week.

“Defence does not agree with an implication that the number of loss of separation per number of aircraft movements directly correlates to safety.”

Defence said that military and civil controllers had “common qualifications” and applied the same standards and procedures. “There are legislative reasons, particularly pertaining to airspace control in times of war, why military air traffic controllers must be regulated and authorised by Defence, rather than CASA,” a Defence spokesman said.

But the ATSB criticised Defence for a lack of transparency on the question of safety and concluded that “the evidence indicates that those civil aircraft (in military-controlled airports) are exposed to a higher level of risk compared with equivalent civilian-operated airports”.

“At present, there is no comprehensive and independent assessment of the levels of safety and compliance with respect to civil aircraft operations at these airports and no transparency for industry with respect to any differences in the levels of service provided or safety afforded … some level of independent assessment and assurance … is warranted.”