Chinese warship live-fire exercise discovered by Virgin Australia pilot, Air safety body says

Just on the Chinese warships... did no-one notice that they traversed the entire length of Queensland? Not care? Chinese own FNQ anyway? (If so, they are probably losing their shirts - I'd never seen so many boarded up shops the last time I visited Cairns.)
 
Yet Australia really continues to "ignore" the dangers of China. How many Chinese airlines are allowed to fly into Sydney these days? Well done VA crew for their own actions on helping the defence force! 🤭
 
Just on the Chinese warships... did no-one notice that they traversed the entire length of Queensland? Not care? Chinese own FNQ anyway? (If so, they are probably losing their shirts - I'd never seen so many boarded up shops the last time I visited Cairns.)
No both Navy and defence forces knew of the presence of the vessels and were tracking them. What no one knew was they were going to be doing live fire exercises.
 
No both Navy and defence forces knew of the presence of the vessels and were tracking them. What no one knew was they were going to be doing live fire exercises.
I guess ideally it would be better if Australian defence forces discovered the firing of live rounds off our coast rather than a commercial pilot.
 
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They know??? They were told by the virgin airline flight!!!
I guess ideally it would be better if Australian defence forces discovered the firing of live rounds off our coast rather than a commercial pilot.
If I were to hazard a guess, they probably hadn't actually started yet and used any aircraft in range and coming in as their announcement.

It's probably a very deliberate and calculated move that they made and it wasn't a coincidence or accident that the information came through in this manner.
 
I guess ideally it would be better if Australian defence forces discovered the firing of live rounds off our coast rather than a commercial pilot.
Assuming they did actually fire something… 😉

Mind you, the navy had been ghosting them down the coast so they probably did hear / see something. Don’t know if they would have had direct access to Air Services - whereas VA was in direct contact with ATC.
 
Fear Not, the Royal Tasmanian Navy Frigate, the RTN No tassie mapper, fondly known as the RTN Brazilian, has been despatched with her captain Rear Admiral Jackie Lambie at breakneck speed to investigate, with intelligence input from Mr Andrew Wilkie MP

That's an upgrade

 
I guess ideally it would be better if Australian defence forces discovered the firing of live rounds off our coast rather than a commercial pilot.

Of course it's possible (maybe even probable) a part of the ADF did know beforehand, but not the part that speaks to Airservices, so the information flow is slow.

And also that they may never admit to knowing if their method of attaining that knowledge is classified.
 

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