Two planes almost collided this week over Chicago. Don’t worry, the FAA stresses: “These incidents are very, very rare.” [AP]
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“came as close as 1.3 miles apart horizontally and 600 feet apart vertically”
Geez, must be a slow day at the Associated Press news desk. If we normalize the size of an airplane to the size of a sedan car, the cars would be moving at 45 mph and the “near miss” would be 700 ft horizontally and 60 ft vertically. Which isn’t much given that the pilots are supposed to be scanning the sky and they have TCAS on board. I guess it’s too close for FAA standards, but still, we’re not talking about a hair-raising incident.
For once, I’ll take the FAA’s advice. 1.3 miles is a LONG distance between airplanes in the air. I won’t worry about THIS. I’m still not flying though.
Seeing as how traffic following visual flight rules pass aircraft
flying on instruments only are at 500 feet, this is no big deal, except
that was above 18,000. It was kind of close, but the cockpit
instruments did there job and that’s why the FAA requires them on
passenger planes that hold more than 30 people. It’s part of the system.
But of course you didn’t hear about the FAA management broke it’s own rules and forced a controller to work seven straight days! Earthtimes.org article.
So until there is a change in upper-level management that will do
its job and prevent this, or just a real contract with the controllers,
then we will continue to have fewer controllers working more airplanes
for longer hours.
Above 18,000 feet, air speed equal to or greater than 300 mph. 300/60 = 5 miles per minute or roughly 1.25 miles in 15 seconds. Converging very, very bad. In trail, doable, but little margin for error. Pilots rarely voluntarily fly into each other. Assuming on board computer gives correct evasive maneuvers and both pilots succesfully follow, everybody lives and only 5 people know: 2 pilots; 2 copilots; and 1 air traffic controller whose career may be over.
@timmus: Actually, it’s more like two IndyCars driving down opposing lanes with a small hill between them. Aircraft close at up to 1,000 mph (ground speed, not indicated speed), and at that speed the speck in the distance becomes a plane in a few seconds. Add in the fact that en-route radar updates once every 8 seconds or so, and it’s possible for targets to merge and separate before the controller can see it. That’s why en-route the separation minimum is 5 miles and 1,000ft between aircraft above 18,000ft.
@timmus: Two planes between 5-10 seconds apart is not a big deal? What if you were on the plane and knew it happened?
And as George Carlin said, it’s not a “near miss.” If they hit, it’s a “near miss.”
“These incidents are very, very rare.”
And yet, just a couple weeks ago, we were hearing that Aviation Near-Mishaps More Common Than Thought.
fyi … Unless given special permission, airplanes under ATC have a 1 1/2 mile (laterally) by 750(?) feet (vertically) “no fly” area around them. TACAS was designed to help enforce this.
@doctor_cos: In that case, the FAA would say “Sucks to be you!”
@bobbiac: It’s 3 nautical miles within 40nm of a typical TRACON radar, or 5 NM outside that radius/en-route, and/or 1000ft between two aircraft under positive ATC guidance. See FAA Order 7110.65 5-5-4 and 4-5-1. It’s a “no fly” zone only in the sense that the controller gets in trouble if two aircraft he/she is talking with get closer than that.
@catnapped: And might require a change of underwear as well…