New flight paths move Hobart crossover point north into Melbourne-controlled airspace
THE crossover point for arriving and departing jets at Hobart Airport will be moved further north to eliminate safety fears.
Tasmania
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THE crossover point for arriving and departing jets at Hobart will be moved further north to eliminate safety fears under new flight paths proposed by Airservices Australia.
The intersection would be monitored by the Melbourne air traffic service centre and not the Hobart control tower, as it was before the previous route changes in September last year.
Those changes resulted in the crossover point being moved south above Richmond in Hobart-controlled airspace.
The Hobart tower has less technology and is not manned 24 hours a day.
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After the changes were introduced in 2017, planes twice flew too close to each other and nine other departing flights failed to stick to height restrictions.
The incidents required Hobart’s air traffic controllers to revert to manually specifying the altitude to pilots, rather than using the satellite flight management system.
The measures were necessary so that incoming and outgoing planes did not collide at the crossover point.
Airservices executive general manager of air navigation services Stephen Angus told the Mercury the proposed crossover point under the new designs was “much further out and much higher”.
“The crossover is fully in surveillance and coverage from the Melbourne centre and it also means there’s less likelihood the aircraft has to restrict its climb,” he said.
“They can fly unrestricted which means there’s less likelihood of an issue and we actually think it is quite a significant safety enhancement.”
The Mercury understands the proposed crossover point is just south of Oatlands.
During its hours of operation, the Hobart tower manages airspace below 2600m with anything higher controlled by Melbourne.
Mr Angus did not specify why the crossover point was moved south in the first place but said the changes were made once Airservices realised there were safety issues.
“Sometimes we do experience teething issues when we introduce change but as soon as we recognised that we made adjustments to make sure that crossover point was very safe,” he said.
Airservices said there had been no incidents reported since March.
Community consultation on the proposed paths runs until December 10 before a final decision is made in January.
jack.paynter@news.com.au
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