Air safety boss questions Sydney Airport incident reporting delay

Australia's air safety chief is seeking to understand why a runway incident at Sydney Airport took four days to be reported to investigators. The delay in notification is under scrutiny after the latest event, where two aircraft crossed the same runway on Sunday, despite being more than a kilometer apart.

Angus Mitchell, chief commissioner of the Air Traffic Safety Bureau (ATSB), told ABC that he was only made aware of Sunday's incident on Thursday afternoon. While Airservices Australia stated the aircraft were never in close proximity, Mitchell emphasized that the occurrence itself was unacceptable. "We're still trying to understand exactly what the delay in the reporting to us was," he said, suggesting potential confusion over whether the incident was part of a training exercise.

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The two aircraft didn't come within really probably around a thousand metres of each other. But, notwithstanding that, it shouldn't have occurred.

This latest event follows two other significant incidents at Sydney Airport within a fortnight. On July 27, a Qantas Link and Qantas flight narrowly avoided a collision. Subsequently, on the same Sunday as the runway crossing incident, a Jetstar crew member was injured when pilots had to brake sharply to avoid a Qatar Airlines flight. Two ground crew members involved in the Jetstar incident underwent blood and alcohol testing as part of the ATSB investigation.

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We're still trying to understand exactly what the delay in the reporting to us was.