How close is too close?

[TR6BILL]

Last weekend I flew from Oakland to Salt Lake City on my trek home to New Orleans. At max altitude, somewhere over the middle of nowhere, I just happened to be glancing out of the right side of the plane and spotted another jetliner whiz by below us, crossing our path from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock. I am not able to judge distance in the air, but I could easily see the full body of the other jetliner. I would guesstimate we were less than a mile apart. Dang that seems close. Is that normal for airline flight paths to cross that way, no where near an airport?

 

[Mickey Richaud]

Unnerving, ain't it? I've also had that experience. Takes a good deal of confidence in the abilities of the pilots and the technologies we've developed.

I never will forget the experience we had on a flight from Oaxaca, Mexico to Houston on a brand new Continental airliner. As we were taking off, we noticed a huge flow of fuel spilling out from one of the wings. Alerted the flight attendants, who reported it to the pilots. One of them came back to the cabin, and took a look. We made a couple of circles of the airport, and landed, to wait for repairs. Seems a fuel door/cap/whatever wasn't sealing properly.

SCARY!

 

[anthony7777]

tr6bill, not to worry, these planes are fitted with a system called TCAS, its a traffic avoidance system that will alert the crew of near traffic and assign directions to each on how to correct i.e. one goes up the other down etc. i agree it can be disnerving at times.

 

[pjsmetana]

On my 1st flight, couple years ago, from Ali Al Salem Kuwait into Baghdad Iraq, the C-130 I was on lost 3 engines and we didn't even know it... I'm sure the air crew knew. Kinda makes you wonder how many times things go wrong on an aircraft, and as a passenger, you never know anything about it.

 

[anthony7777]

pjsmetena, as a former crew member of 14 years i can tell you you dont want to know!

 

[aerog]

Is that normal for airline flight paths to cross that way, no where near an airport?

Yes.

With modern equipment qualified aircraft only need a minimum of 1000ft vertical separation - otherwise it's 2000ft.

 

[GregW]

I figure "close" is when you see fear in the faces of the passengers on the other plane.

 

[TR6oldtimer]

In 1972, I saw pictures taken from a pair of F-4s that intercepted and dropped down on each side of an Australian airliner over the Indian Ocean. The fear on the faces of the pilot and passenger faces in those photos were real.

 

[Silverghost]

As the late, great George Carlin used to say - "That's not a near miss - that's a near hit!"

 

[vagt6]

Just about every time I fly, I keep remindin' myself:

"it's statistically safer than driving"

"it's statistically safer than driving"

I repeat this more frequently in bad weather, o during a rough landing, etc.

:lol:

 

[Stewart]

only a 1000 feet vertical seperation now days in the flight levels. Bet you were crossing a vor or an intersection.