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By Matt Goss
SYDNEY, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The pilot of a plane that crashed into a Melbourne shopping center on Tuesday was already under investigation over a "near collision", it has been revealed.
Max Quartermain, 63, and his four passengers were killed after the charter plane they were on ploughed into the Direct Factory Outlet (DFO) shopping center in Essendon in Melbourne's north at 09:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
Witnesses of the crash described seeing a "massive fireball" erupt from the crash scene as debris scattered across the nearby Tullamarine freeway.
The plan experienced "catastrophic engine failure" soon after taking off from Essendon airport bound for King Island, a popular golf tourist destination, with Quartermain and four passengers from the United States on board.
The passengers have been identified as Texas businessmen John Washburn, Greg De Haven, Russell Munsch and Glenn Garland.
It has been revealed that Quartermain was the subject of an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) regarding a near miss with another plane at Mount Hotham, 350 kms north-east of Melbourne in September 2015.
A summary of the investigation said that Quartermain's plane, with the call signal VH-OWN, came within 100 meters of colliding with another plane mid-air in bad weather.
It said that Quartermain's plane experienced "tracking difficulties" as it approached Hotham.
"VH-OWN was then observed to carry out significant manoeuvring while on short final to the runway before landing," the report said.
The revelation that Quartermain was under investigation came as Michael Buxton, a planning expert at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) said that the commercial precinct should have never been built on the site.
Buxton said the privatization of Australian airports since 1997 had seen leaseholders make "packets of money" but had put the lives of passengers and nearby residents at risk.
He told Fairfax Media on Wednesday that the Essendon Airport DFO was "one of the most extensive commercializations of any airport in Australia and it has put thousands of extra people daily within the airport boundaries."
Benjamin Morgan, executive director of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, said planning rules which allowed large buildings to be built near airports meant pilots no longer had the space in the case of emergencies.
"Distinctly separate from the investigation that will take place now, I do see an issue in the location of DFO," Morgan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday.
"The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association over the last two decades have been advocating quite strongly to the government and various stakeholders that there has been far too much commercial and industrial development that is simply incompatible with aviation."
"I think that what we're looking at here is not isolated to Essendon, it is replicated at many airports around the country and it has come as the result of airport privatisation and it's a very sad outcome."
"We, like the rest of Australia, find this accident incredibly terrible and sad."
The tragedy has re-ignited calls for the airport to be closed permanently but Daniel Andrews, Victoria's premier, said it was in important transport hub for Victoria.
"There are some people who have wanted Essendon Airport to close for a very long time, and I don't think that's going to happen," Andrews said on Wednesday.
"But if we can make it safer we all stand ready to do that."
He said concerns in the wake of the crash were "perfectly natural" but "rational and logical decisions" needed to be made once the investigation into the crash was completed.
"I'm alive to the concerns of local residents, of course, but there's a balance that needs to be struck here," he said.
"If there are things we can do, if there are changes to be made to make a safe airport even safer, then I'm ready to do that.
"I'm sure everyone who has interests at the airport would join me in that, and the Federal Government who actually regulate airports, no doubt they'd have interest in doing that."
