Virgin 737 on the taxiway heading out to Sydney's rwy 34R. (Source: Simon Sees under CC BY 2.0)
By Ben Westcott
Feb 25, 2025 (Bloomberg) –Australia was unaware Chinese warships were set to conduct live-fire exercises off its east coast until its security authorities were alerted via a Virgin Australia pilot who heard radio communications about the drills, according to a top air traffic official.
As Beijing and Canberra trade accusations over last week’s military exercises, Rob Sharp, chief executive officer of Airservices Australia, told a Senate hearing late Monday that his organization only became aware of the drills shortly before they began. One of the group’s air traffic controllers was informed by a Virgin pilot, he said.
“That’s how we first found out,” Sharp told a parliamentary panel. The pilot relayed to the Australian controller Friday morning that “a foreign warship was broadcasting that they were conducting live-firing 300 nautical miles (555 kilometers) east off our coast.”
After it was notified, Airservices Australia issued a hazard alert within two minutes to all commercial pilots flying across the Tasman Sea, Sharp said. Shortly after that, Australia’s Department of Defence was notified.
In total, 49 flights diverted around the area of the live-fire drills and planes continued to avoid the area over the course of the weekend, Airservices Australia said.
Australia’s Defence Department said in a statement that the three Chinese warships had re-entered the nation’s exclusive economic zone on Tuesday morning. The vessels were about 160 nautical miles east of Hobart, near Australia’s southernmost state of Tasmania, it said.
The three Chinese warships undertook the highly unusual drills in international waters between Australia’s heavily populated east coast and New Zealand’s west coast on Friday, drawing strong reactions from officials in both Canberra and Wellington.
While Australia’s government criticized the lack of notice given in advance of the live-fire drills, Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman Wu Qian said in a statement Sunday that Canberra had “deliberately hyped it up” and claimed the objections were “inconsistent with the facts.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong were quick to stress the Chinese military’s actions were legal. Such an approach is consistent with Australia’s ongoing cooperation with US allies in upholding freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
“We respect the right of all states under international law to exercise freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace, just as we expect others to respect our right to do the same,” a spokesperson for the Defence Department said in the statement.
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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