Virgin pilot first to spot three Chinese warships off Australia

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Airservices Australia has revealed that a Virgin Australia pilot was the first to spot three Chinese warships off Australia's east coast last week.

Three Chinese warships – a frigate, cruiser and replenishment ship – were spotted about 150 nautical miles off Sydney in the Tasman Sea on Friday morning.

Beijing has confirmed it is conducting live-fire exercises in international waters.

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Airservices Australia's chief executive Rob Sharpe told the Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee last night that the organisation was informed about their presence at 9:58 am.

"It was actually a Virgin Australia plane that told one of our air traffic controllers that a foreign warship was broadcasting, that they were carrying out live fire exercises about 300 nautical miles off our coastline," he told senators.

That's when we first discovered the problem.

Airservices Australia deputy chief executive Peter Curran said the warships were detected on an international guard frequency, which air traffic controllers don't monitor but pilots do.

According to the heads of the government-owned organisation, a hazard alert was issued to all flights in the area within two minutes of the report at 10 am and the Australian Defence Force was subsequently notified soon after.

"At that point, we weren't sure if it was a possible hoax or genuine. We just followed our usual process and passed on the information," Curran said.

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Curran said an Emirates aircraft pilot made contact with the Chinese warships at 10:18 am and was told they were conducting live firing exercises.

Air traffic controllers then redirected 49 flights.

"Some of those planes that were already in the air when we first found out about the situation, many of them were flights that were later re-routed to fly around the affected airspace," Curran said.

Flight plans kept getting altered throughout the weekend as a precautionary measure.

Curran said the three vessels had moved further south in the Tasman Sea by yesterday morning, away from the flight paths so flights are no longer being diverted.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was grilled at a press conference this morning about whether he was worried that Virgin Airlines was the first to alert the public about Chinese warships in the area, but he maintained that Defence was "certainly aware" of the situation.

"Australia has had surveillance of Chinese naval ships in the region conducted both from the sea and the air," he said at a press conference this morning.

Last week, Albanese confirmed China's actions were consistent with international law, but Foreign Minister Penny Wong raised concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the testing.

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