By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-08-17 04:13:55 | Updated at 2026-08-17 06:20:55
2 hours ago
SYDNEY – A series of near collisions between aircraft at Sydney Airport has raised questions about safety at the country’s busiest airport, including concerns about a shortage of air traffic controllers and a delay in reporting incidents.
Angus Mitchell, the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), said on Aug 14 that the latest incident – involving a Qantas plane that was cleared to cross a runway being used for a Virgin Australia take-off – “shouldn’t have occurred”. Both planes were Boeing 737s.
He said the incident – the third in less than two weeks – did not pose a serious risk of a collision but expressed concern about the failure of government agency Airservices Australia to report the incident until Aug 13, though it occurred at 10am on Aug 9.
“The two aircraft didn’t come within probably around a thousand metres of each other,” Mitchell told ABC Radio. “Notwithstanding that, it shouldn’t have occurred. We’re still trying to understand exactly what the delay in the reporting to us was.”
The three incidents have raised concerns about safety at the airport, particularly whether a lack of air traffic controllers has led to staff being overworked and fatigued.
Scott Nugent, the head of air traffic controllers’ union Civil Air, told The Sydney Morning Herald on Aug 11 that there was “just not enough air traffic controllers at Sydney Airport”. He said the airport relied on controllers working overtime, including “some of them doing 10 shifts on, and then one day off, over and over, in order to keep the tower running properly”.
Nugent did not respond to a request by The Straits Times to discuss the latest incident.
Aviation expert Tony Stanton, head of the firm Strategic Air, told The Straits Times that three significant incidents in such a short time was “unusual” and required urgent investigation by aviation authorities, the airport and airlines.
He said there were long-running concerns in Australia about the number of air traffic controllers but it was too early to say whether this was a cause of the recent incidents.
“Three significant events in less than two weeks clearly constitute a cluster that the aviation system needs to look at,” he said.
“We should not wait for an accident before looking at all the things at play, including workload, staffing, runway coordination and supervision.”
Stanton said Airservices Australia, which operates 29 air traffic control towers across the country as well as employing controllers and conducts training, was responsible for ensuring the air traffic system was adequately staffed.
“If the investigations (by ATSB) find it (Airservices Australia) needs more staff, then it needs more staff,” he said.
Rob Sharp, the head of Airservices Australia, told reporters on Aug 10 there was a shortage of controllers but this had not affected safety. He said the shortage began with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic but it was taking time to address the shortage, partly because controllers require two years of training.
“It’s a really complex airspace, so we can’t just go out and hire even experienced international controllers,” he said. “We do need to actually go through a training process.”
Airservices Australia, which operates the country’s busiest airports, had 1,073 air traffic controllers, up from 985 in 2020, according to freedom of information documents published by the Sydney Morning Herald on Aug 15.
In 2025, 91 new controllers were endorsed, up from 52 in 2024. But the demand for air traffic controllers will continue to grow, due to increasing traffic at Sydney Airport and plans to start passenger flights at the new 24-hour Western Sydney International Airport from October 2026.
Air traffic controllers in Australia typically work 72 hours every fortnight across shifts that include day, evening, night shifts, weekends and public holidays, with a minimum eight-hour break between shifts.
Rosters are prepared months in advance and vary by location. Sharp said a new rostering system will be introduced in September. The system will reportedly involve having staff on call so that replacements can more easily be found if controllers are unavailable.
Sydney Airport, which is just 8km from the city centre, has domestic and international terminals and is the country’s busiest airport. In 2025, the airport recorded 42.5 million passenger movements, including 25.3 million domestic and 17.2 million international.
The Australian and International Pilots Association, which represents pilots, told ST it did not want to comment on the recent incidents. But the association’s safety and technical director, Captain Steve Cornell, told The Australian Financial Review on Aug 10 that air traffic controllers were overworked, often putting in 10 consecutive days of work before getting a single day off, which is “not sustainable”.
‘Strong safety culture’
Ugur Turhan, an aviation expert at the University of New South Wales Canberra, told ST that Sydney Airport is an international hub with a complex operating environment, including three runways — two parallel north-south runways and one east-west runway that intersects the main north-south runway.
Additionally, there is an extensive network of connecting taxiways, multiple runway and taxiway access points, and a high volume of flight traffic compressed into a 17-hour window due to a curfew from 11pm to 6am to reduce aircraft noise for the surrounding suburbs.
He said Sydney faces the type of operational complexity seen at other major international hubs such as Singapore’s Changi Airport and Hong Kong International Airport.
“In a complex aviation system, the possibility of human or operational error can never be completely eliminated, which is why proactive risk management, continuous learning and strong safety barriers are so important,” Turhan said.
He said the recent incidents were serious but did not indicate Sydney Airport was unsafe.
“Australia has highly capable operators and a strong safety culture,” he said. “Serious events are not frequent, and every occurrence should be used as an opportunity to learn and improve.”
Initial concerns about the airport’s safety were sparked by an incident involving two Qantas aircraft at 8.14am on July 27, in which an international flight was cleared to cross a runway as a domestic flight was landing there.
This was followed by an incident at 7am on Aug 9, in which a domestic Jetstar flight that was taxiing before take-off nearly collided with a Qatar Airways Boeing 777 being towed across a crossing taxiway. Both aircraft were stopped suddenly, injuring a Jetstar cabin crew member who needed medical attention at the scene.
These incidents had already prompted concerns about safety before the latest incident was reported on Aug 13. The incident required a Virgin Australia aircraft to come to a complete stop before take-off to avoid a Qantas domestic plane that was crossing the runway before a flight.
ATSB is investigating all three incidents.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters on Aug 14 that Australian airports had an “extraordinarily safe record”. But, responding to the latest near-miss, he said: “There needs to be immediate reporting of any incident”.
