Sydney airport incident involving Virgin and Qantas flights didn’t have to be reported, Airservices Australia says

Airservices boss says planes remained 1km apart so runway incursion ‘didn’t meet mandatory reporting requirements’ but safety bureau is ‘concerned’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The organisation that manages Australian skies has defended its decision not to immediately report a fresh safety incident at Sydney airport when a Virgin plane aborted its takeoff. The chief executive of the commonwealth-owned Airservices Australia, Rob Sharp, said he did not believe the incident met the reporting threshold, given the substantial distance between the Virgin plane and a Qantas aircraft crossing the runway in front of it on Sunday. Sharp said air traffic controllers rescinded clearances while the aircraft were still more than 1km apart. “Based on that criteria, it didn’t meet the mandatory reporting requirements from our perspective,” Sharp said on Friday. “However, we’re quite open to reviewing the data that surrounds it. If there are improvements to be made, we will make them.” The incident was referred to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on Thursday – four days after t