An Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) investigation has found Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (VARA) significantly under-reported occurrences of terrain warnings during flights operated by its fleet of ATR 72 turboprops. The ATSB discovered the under-reporting while looking into an incident on May 13 2013, when multiple terrain warnings were triggered on board VARA ATR 72 VH-FVR
Two Regional Express (Rex) pilots flying from Sydney to Newcastle began preparations to land on a coal facility after struggling to locate Williamtown Airport in dark conditions. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) report on the November 8 2012 incident found the captain thought the buildings and lights of the Kooragang Island coal facility was
Qantas maintained its position as Australia’s largest international carrier in 2014, although the gap to foreign airlines such as Emirates and Qantas’s low-cost subsidiary Jetstar is narrowing. Figures from the Bureau of Transport, Infrastructure and Regional Economics (BITRE) show Qantas carried 15.4 per cent of the 33.1 million passengers that travelled into and out of Australia
Cathay Pacific will boost capacity between Hong Kong and Sydney from October 1 when it deploys a Boeing 777-300ER on a second of its four daily flights on the route. The Hong Kong-based carrier says the move to replace the Airbus A330-300 with the 777-300ER will increase the seat count by eight per cent. The airline
While 2014 featured the tragic loss of life from the disappearance of MH370 and shooting down of MH17, in statistical terms the past year was one of the safest ever for commercial aviation. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) Safety Performance report said there were 12 fatal accidents involving all aircraft types in 2014, down
While Qantas has handed the “keys” to VH-OJA over to the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS), the record-breaking Boeing 747-400 will be surrounded by a lot of familiar faces as it settles into a new home at Illawarra Airport. That’s because, as Qantas Captain Greg Matthews explains, there are about 400 HARS volunteers that have actually
