On the bright side, if you encounter flaming, apocalyptic death while attempting to fly to Cabo, at least you won't be stuck on the tarmac for four hours.

The legal definition of a near-collision, according to the Post, is when two planes are flying less than 500 feet apart.

That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that if each is moving at normal cruise speed, they could be approaching one another at something like 1,100 mph, which is nearly a third of a mile every second.

Put that in your TCAS and smoke it.

The government would deny it. They deny everything and don't take responsibility for anything. They do need more ATC's and fast.

who cares about near collisions and the whining faa. we need more tsa and cavity searches, definitely cavity searches... "pardon me ma'am, did anyone ask you to smuggle something in your ass today?... was it ticking ma'am?!"

The LA Times has a more indepth article about how it's not the ATC's fault - the problem with near misses stems from the antiquated (i.e. 1950's era) radar and beaconing system. UPS has been experimenting with GPS-based flight positioning systems with great results. Let's lay off the air traffic controllers and lay blame where it really needs to go - congress needs to help out the FAA in implementing a multi-billion dollar flight system that will be able to handle the predicted capacity coming in the next few years.

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-airports11jun11

Airlines or government don't care about this stuff until people actually die, that is, until the bad press from somebody dying comes along. Lets all pray Mr. Bush leaves this issue for others to solve, or we'll end up with 5 collisions/day.

Hmm... They need ATCs? What does a job like that pay?

@ganzhimself: I have a buddy that's an ATC for a major metropolitan area and his salary is in the six-figures. He actually recommended the movie "Pushing Tin" for anyone even thinking about becoming an ATC.

Why oh why did I have to read this three weeks before my trip to Florida?...

(And why, exactly, am I taking a trip to Florida in July?)

Facing a barrage of criticism due to the 5 near-misses over NY airports last month, the FAA pointed out that it followed normal procedures in such cases. Transcripts show that the FAA, as required by their own procedures, took evasive action and engaged their avoidance system, issuing the statement: "there is no problem; everything is fine."

hmmmm, i wonder what kind of training/education Air Traffic Controllers need.... looks like i've got a new career path to research! ;)

I flew into Newark from Minneapolis Sunday on Continental. I have been flying for at least 40 years. This was the first time I saw 3 aircraft during a flight. 99.9 times out of 100 I never see any other aircraft. But 3 during a 2.5-hour flight?
Makes you wonder.

You know, I don't think I could take the stress of being a ATC. It's always near the top of those most stressful jobs lists.

I've said this before on here, but something needs to be done about air traffic in the NYC area. It's just getting way too crowded.

@myrall: Haha, probably because that's the only movie that remotely has anything to do with ATC. IIRC, most of the movie has little to nothing to do with ATC.

I'm glad pilots are obeying TCAS. If you can find it, check out the Air Crash Investigation season 2 episode 4 which is about the 2002 mid-air collision over Germany between a DHL 757 and a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashkirian_Airlines_Flight_29...

@wobudong: Yea, I just wanted to add I've noticed that as well. It's getting crowded in the sky's. I think the FAA's needs to focus more on the regional airports to help release pressure at the top 30.

Am I the only one who's not even a little surprised that an air traffic controllers' union representative is saying scary things to help put public pressure on the FAA to get what they want? You might want to take these warnings with a grain or two of salt. I don't trust the government any more than the rest of you, but a union rep is hardly an unbiased source.

A relative of mine was an ATC at LAX for years. He made bank and got to retire at 50 with full government pension! But if you think about it, how much stress in a job do you need to have for the government to let you retire 15 yrs ahead of the normal retirement age, pay you a ton of money to do it, and let you live high on the hog for the rest of your life?

My relative had extensive engineering training and was in the air force for years before his ATC job, for those wanting to make the leap over to that career. ;)

On a three hour flight from Houston to Laguardia, I also saw at least three planes. One of which passed right over us, very close.

So wouldn't a potential collision between aircraft be called a near hit?

Any way you slice it, this is definitely not a comforting trend.