Near miss: The lights of a plane can be seen approaching from the left, before disappearing from view under the other plane’s wing.
FOOTAGE has emerged of the moment three planes were involved in a near miss at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport.
The incident, which occurred on the night of July 5 last year, was captured on camera by a passenger on one of the aircrafts and just released online.
Described by senator Nick Xenophon as a “potential disaster”, it involved two Qantas Boeing 737 planes — QF449 and QF819 — which were both forced to abort landings to avoid a collision with a third plane.
Emirates flight UAE 405 was late in taking off from an intersecting runway. As it gathered speed, a Qantas plane appeared on the radar behind it, ready to land on the same runway.
The two Qantas pilots were forced to perform a “double go around”, in order to avoid a collision, with one of the Qantas jets given permission to fly at an unsafe altitude.
In the video, the lights of another plane can be seen approaching from the left, before disappearing from view under the wing, and the plane then performs a “missed approach”. The First Officer can be heard explaining to passengers why this was a necessary manoeuvre.
Mr Xenaphon told 9 News he had been contacted by air traffic controllers and pilots who were concerned about safety procedures at the airport.
He said the pilots were given less than 20 seconds to react to the situation and were less than one nautical mile apart.
“This was a near miss,” he said. “Two aircraft nearly collided in air, because of a series of systemic failures.”
A trainee air traffic controller on their fourth shift had been manning the control tower at the time, along with a training instructor and a tower co-ordinator. Mr Xenophon alleges pressure is put on air traffic controllers to optimise takeoffs and landings.
There’s also concern over the double intersecting runways at Tullamarine Airport, as most international airports have multiple runways that sit parallel to each other.
A Qantas spokesman told the Sydney Morning Herald that the pilots “responded quickly and followed standard procedure for a missed approach, landing safely shortly afterwards”.
“Qantas is comfortable with the land and hold short procedure at Melbourne Airport, which is used by all domestic airlines at Tullamarine without incident every day.”
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is investigating the incident.
News.com.au has contacted Qantas and AirServices Australia for comment.
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