AVALON, Australia, March 25 (Reuters)–The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), monitoring a Chinesenavywarship as it circumnavigated Australia last month, heard it warn it would use live fire in its exercises on a civilian radio broadcast, defense pilots said on Tuesday.
A People’s Liberation ArmyNavyfrigate conducted the unprecedentedlive-fire exercisein the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February,causing 49commercial flights to be rerouted.
China has said it gave adequate warning about the drill under international law, but Australian and New Zealand authorities said it fell short of best practice for notifications.
Commercial airlinesfirst heardabout the live-fire drill when a Virgin Australia pilot picked up a Chinesenavybroadcast on the 121.5 MHz emergency radio channel.
Ahead of a national election due by May, opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton criticized the Labor government for “a situation where our national maritime surveillance was outsourced to a Virgin airline pilot.”
At the Australian International Airshow in Avalon on Tuesday, RAAF maritime surveillance pilots said Australia’s P-8A Poseidon were flying “high duration, high frequency sorties” and monitoring the Chinesenavywarship’s transmissions on UHF and VHF at the time, in details that had not previously been made public.
“The transmissions that came through are just standard warnings of their positions as well as their intent of live-fire exercises,” said P-8A Poseidon flying officer Patrick Makeham.
He described this as “similar to saying that we will be conducting live firing exercise in those areas.”
Air Commodore Gus Porter, director-general of RAAF air combat capability, said the P-8A aircraft were used for anti-submarine warfare and to deter aggression.
“You don’t need to be on top of a task group 24 hours a day to be tracking exactly what they are doing,” he added.
The RAAF P-8A aircraft conduct routine surveillance patrols in international waters in the South China Sea, which China has criticized.
Australia last monthcomplained to Chinaover what it was “unsafe and unprofessional” actions by a Chinese fighter jet releasing flares within 30 meters (100 feet) of an Australian P-8A aircraft.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Avalon, Australia; Editing by Jamie Freed)
