Disturbing audio has emerged of the moment a Virgin Airlines Australia pilot realised he was flying over a live-fire Chinese naval training exercise.
Chinese warships holding exercises in the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand, forced the diversion of 49 aircraft in February.
A lack of notice about the drill led to an uptick in tensions between the Australian and Chinese governments.
Newly emerged cockpit audio of the tense conversation between a pilot in charge of Virgin flight VA161 from Sydney to Queenstown and air control was released this week under a Freedom of Information request by Nine News.
‘We’ve just had a warning from a Chinese naval taskforce that they’re doing a live-firing exercise. Is anyone aware of that?’ the pilot asked base.
Air traffic control was unaware but reassured the pilot they would check, with the controller asking: ‘Did they advise a level that they’d be firing to?’
The pilot claimed the Chinese were given a 10-mile radius for the training and it appeared as though his flight was out of firing range, though he sounded uneasy.
‘So if we go missing you’ll know what happened, hey?’ the pilot said. ‘Good luck,’ the air traffic controller then replied.
Audio has emerged of Australian pilots discovering the Chinese navy was conducting live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea, directly in the area it was flying
A Virgin Airlines pilot asked air control about the drills during the flight from Sydney to Queenstown, with the controller revealing they had no information on it
Three Chinese naval ships were involved in the military exercises in the Tasman Sea with the frigate, cruiser and replenishment vessel then circumnavigating the country.
Other recorded conversations between air traffic control and planed saw staff warn Qantas and Emirates of the naval fire.
One controller warned an Emirates pilot they needed to change their course or they would be ‘essentially fly right over the top of that position’.
A Qantas plane relayed information to air traffic control gathered by an Emirates flight that the Chinese warships were firing up to 15 kilometres.
Passenger flights typically fly around 10km above sea level.
Vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association, Steve Cornell, explained the lack of clarity around the exercise ’caused a period of significant uncertainty’.
‘It was certainly irresponsible. It’s a big piece of water out there and they didn’t need to park their ships under a particularly busy route,’ he said.
‘I’m sure they certainly knew that would cause a level of disruption.’
Anthony Albanese asked Chinese President Xi Jinping about the military operation during a recent trip to Beijing
China was not required under international law to alert Australia of the military training.
However, opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie claimed the failed courtesy was a ‘provocation’ from China and an act of ‘gunboat diplomacy’.
At the time, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong questioned why China went ahead with the drills ‘without advance notification’.
‘I raised Australia’s expectations around safe and professional military conduct,’ Wong said.
During his recent trip to China, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brought up the livefire exercises during a face-to-face meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
‘I said what I said at the time,’ Albanese said following the discussion.
‘It was within international law, there was no breach of international law by China.
‘But that we were concerned about the notice and the way that it happened, including the live-fire exercises.’
