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’

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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 take-off.

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.