Two Passenger Planes Avoid Near Collision

Two Qantas jets had a near collision on Friday. The two passenger jets were 721 feet from each other over Adelaide.

Alert systems went off as a Sydney-to-Perth plane got a little too close to a plane heading in the other direction. The plane from Sydney was given permission by air traffic control to climb, or get higher. The flight was cleared to climb from 38,000 feet to 40,000 feet. Due to the incident, an air traffic controller has been stood down, TVNZ reports.

"Soon after, the controller cancelled the clearance and the aircraft descended back to 38,000 feet," the ATSB said.

Passenger Gary Martin was one of those on the plane.

"There was nothing reported; I just happened to look out the window somewhere in South Australia and saw a plane fly underneath," he told reporters at Perth Airport.

Not every passenger knew about the near miss though. They didn't notice anything weird about the flight.

The airline says the Airbus A330 aircraft had a "loss of separation".
"Our pilots followed standard operating procedures in re-establishing the required separation distance," the airline said in a statement.

An investigation has been started by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). They will examine radar and audio data and will interview air traffic controllers and the flight crew. The investigation is expected to be complete this month.

The flight crew on the second plane also received an alert.

While 721 feet doesn't seem too close, the situation is still very serious as hundreds of passengers would have died if a collision did occur. No one would have survived that crash. The planes are required to be 1,000 feet apart at all times.