The Civil Aviation Safety Authority will not proceed with the Bankstown Corridor proposal as it was originally published.
CASA Executive Manager Stakeholder Engagement Andreas Marcelja told Australian Flying yesterday that feedback to the concept almost universally considered the proposal unsafe, forcing the Office of Airspace Regulation (OAR) back to the drawing board.
The proposal envisaged an outbound lane running from Revesby Station to Casuarina Oval and Woronora Cemetery, and an inbound lane from Engadine to Ridge Golf Course, Sandy Point Mine and Brighton Lakes Golf Club.
The corridor ceiling would have been only 1500 feet, and at its narrowest point between Sandy Point Mine and Casuarina Oval was only 1.4 nm wide.
Changes to the Sydney airspace driven by the new Western Sydney (Nancy-Bird Walton) International Airport have created the need to link Bankstown Airport with a new training area, supposedly to the south of the city.
Consultation, which closed in October last year, revealed a mixture of concerns, with three main issues raised with some regularity, being:
- the low-level nature of the corridor
- the risk of mid-air collision
- likelihood of controlled airspace and restricted airspace incursions.
CASA has said it will work on another proposal with the aim of consulting with the aviation community again in the middle of this year.