Airservices Australia has revealed a Virgin Airlines pilot was the first to spot three Chinese warships off Australia's east coast last week. | *Subscribe and 🔔: http://9Soci.al/KM6e50GjSK9*
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00:00Good evening. We were assured our defence force was watching Chinese warships by air and by sea
00:07as they stalked south down the Australian coast.
00:11But in stunning revelations, it was actually a Virgin Australia pilot
00:15who first sounded the alarm about the Chinese Navy conducting live-fire exercises
00:21which forced passenger jets to divert.
00:25China's most powerful warship, the Zunyi, bristles with high-powered weaponry.
00:31As it sailed south with two other warships into the Tasman Sea,
00:35the Defence Minister said they were being watched.
00:38We are monitoring very closely what the activities of the task group are.
00:44Not closely enough it seems.
00:46At 9.58 on Friday morning, the pilot of Virgin Flight 161 from Sydney to Queenstown
00:52was notified by radio by a Chinese warship below
00:56of live-fire exercises 300 nautical miles east of the coast.
01:01The pilot immediately relayed this to Air Services Australia
01:05which issued a hazard alert to all planes in the area.
01:08The only way you knew about this was because a Virgin pilot heard about it and called in.
01:15Correct.
01:16Correct. Thank you, Virgin pilot.
01:18Twenty minutes later, an Emirates flight to Christchurch was also warned by the warship of live-fire.
01:24QF121, flying some minutes behind, diverts its path south.
01:29Forty-six other planes that day avoid the area.
01:32The flight plans continued to divert throughout the weekend as a matter of precaution.
01:38It was Air Services Australia who alerted Defence about the live-fire warnings.
01:43You were ahead of Defence on this?
01:45I wouldn't say we were ahead.
01:47It's not a...
01:48We became aware of the situation because of...
01:50And then you fed that information.
01:52Australia has had frigates both monitoring by sea and by air of these Chinese vessels.
01:59China says Australia has hyped up its concerns, claiming it issued repeated safety notices well in advance.
02:07That's a case of they would say that.
02:10International practice is to give 24 to 48 hours notice of live missile testing, and that wasn't followed.
02:17Classic revisionist power politics.
02:20This is rewriting the rules.
02:22As if to make the point, the Chinese ships now off Hobart, inside Australia's exclusive economic zone.
02:29Andrew Proban, Nine News.