KEY POINTS:
Aviation authorities are not getting an accurate number of mid-air near-misses because many pilots are not reporting them despite being legally required to do so, a senior pilot and safety campaigner says.
Vincent Aviation managing director Peter Vincent made the claims in response to a report by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) - released to the Herald on Sunday - detailing 34 near-collisions around the country.
The CAA could not be reached to confirm over what period of time they occurred.
Mr Vincent said the number of near-misses might be greater than reported, calling it the "top of the iceberg", with the real number potentially at least 10 times higher.
Many pilots were not reporting near-misses, possibly because they were unaware of how close they had come to a collision or didn't understand CAA definitions.
Mr Vincent said little had changed since a collision between a light plane and a helicopter over Paraparaumu in February that killed three.
"There is going to be another mid-air accident," he predicted.
The report revealed that in the closest shave, a microlight came within 15m of a four-seater light aircraft about 900m above Eyrewell in Canterbury in March last year.
In another incident, two planes with passengers came within 50m of colliding over the Marlborough Sounds last summer.
Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said the authority had done an "enormous" amount of work to raise awareness of safety and pilots' reporting responsibilities.
"The number of accidents over the past 10 years has halved - that's well-known. The ideal would be to have none."
Mr Sommer said near-collisions were "something we live with" and it was always a concern when aircraft came as close as a few metres.
"Obviously it's alarming to people to have that happen," he said. "But incidents like that are normally reported very quickly. Safety systems rely on the information flow."
- NZPA
