A Senate Estimates committee has heard a late night technology failure at Melbourne Airport led ground controllers to lose the positions of multiple planes on the tarmac.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon told estimates he was tipped off about the incident on February 13 at the busy metropolitan airport.

"If this was a foggy night in Melbourne it could have been potentially quite a serious incident," he said.

Senator Xenophon said his information was that at least 10 planes that were taxiing to fly out of the airport were affected.

He told the committee the ground radar system failed just before 10:00pm (AEDT), as some of the planes prepared to depart in order to beat the Sydney Airport arrival curfew.

He said all the information relating to plane movements was lost.

"Can you confirm this, because I am getting a number of complaints," the Senator asked.

Air Services Australia's executive general manager of Air Traffic Control Greg Hood confirmed he was aware of the incident.

He said bad weather meant planes were delayed on the tarmac for more than one hour, and as a result some of them automatically dropped off the system.

"My understanding on that night in question was [that] there was thunderstorm activity and a number of aircraft that were taxiing in from the runway were unable to reach their gate."

He said the timeframe for the planes to remain in the system had since been increased to five hours.

Mr Hood told the hearing he was not expecting the question from Senator Xenophon and would provide further information and clarification if required.

Senator Xenophon told the hearing he received a text message from one of his sources while Mr Hood was giving evidence.

"Can I just tell you I've got a text message from somebody that was there that night," he said.

Senator Xenophon told the committee the message said the suggestion a thunderstorm was part of the reason for the failure was "crap" and "the storm had passed".