What is classifed as a near miss?
 

On a recent flight from YYJ to SEA on Horizon the aircraft made a sudden upwards movement and I saw a small plane zip by underneath us. The pilot came on the PA and explained that while we were in no danger, the other aircraft had come within 1/4 mile and was too close for their comfort. He said he would be reporting this as a near miss. A 1/4 mile seems like a lot of distance but when you realize how fast space is eaten up with two planes flying torwads each other you have to wonder. Does anybody know what the FAA qualifies as a near miss?

I wonder whether you were in an area of airspace where the minimum required separation was 1,000 feet vertically. That's about 1/5 mile. Horizontally (between aircraft at the same altitude or level) typical requirements are typically 3 miles or 5 miles when under radar control.

A pilot can file a Near Midair Collision Report if in his judgement the aircraft were too close. There is no standard required to file the report.

That being said, it is likely that part of your flight was conducted outside of class A or B airspace where there is no minimum separation standard. In the United States, only flights operating under instrument flight rules receive ATC separation outside of class A or B airspace. Pilots are required to see and avoid each other during visual conditions.

This happened over the puget sound, seconds before we crossed over Ballard.

Sounds like what Tanic has assumed is correct in this case. ATC will usually call out traffic in these cases and ethically will do what they can to keep planes apart, but it's visual flight rules. The pilot can file a report that will go to Quality Assurance and they'll likely just look and go, yeah, someone could have called out traffic, but there was no requirement to do so.

To quote George Carlin: It's a near hit!!!

http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

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truly yours. airOli.

[This message has been edited by airoli (edited 05-26-2003).]

AirOli, I really like your web design work. Thought AirOli was real at first. If I had any money, I'd have you redsign my web site.



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Michael Steinberg
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Please visit my site and let me know what you think.

Thank you, I'm glad to hear that you like it. If I had the time, I'd update the airOli site a bit more frequently... http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...m/rolleyes.gif

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truly yours. airOli.

You don't have to wonder...you can figure it out!

If you and the small plane are converging head-on 1/4 mile is nothing--i.e., if you're traveling 400 mph on the Horizon plane and the small plane is going 100 mph--the two planes are traveling towards each other at 500 mph or over 8 miles per minute. The aircraft will collide in just over 7 seconds. Yikes, ehe?

Finally! I've figured out how to use all of that stuff I learned in 8th grade math..."if train A leaves Denver at 4:40 and train B leaves Sacramento at 4:45..." http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif Though I never did too well, then so don't look TOO closely at the #s now. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

It's actually less than that: 500 mph is 7.2 seconds per mile. A quarter mile therefore goes by in 1.8 seconds.

The good news is that you won't be scared s***less for long, one way or the other.

Actually the good news is you may not feel more than a slight bump. A Cessna 152 collided with a Lufthansa 747 departing LAX not too many years back and the Lufthansa crew didn't even know it. When they landed in Germany they discovered scratches and found out the Cessna crashed into them. Things didn't go quite so well for the folks in the Cessna - they died.

A near miss...isn't it when the lady carring a screaming baby down the center aisle in the plane looks at the empty seat next to you and then keeps walking?

Just like the stuff I used to forget in high school--forgot to divide by 4 to finish it off! Either way, it's way too close.

There was one in STL a few years ago between a cessna and an MD-80. IIRC the damage to the MD-80 was not huge, but it could have been.

The TWA MD80 was rolling at high speed on runway 30R at STL when the Twin Cessna pilot got lost taxiing, and turned on to the wrong runway head on with TWA.

Miraculously, this indicent fared much better than the USAir B737 and Skywest Metro accident on runway 24L at LAX.

why is it called a near miss. it is an actual miss. near miss is a yogi berra'ism, no?

[This message has been edited by fly co to see the yanks (edited 05-30-2003).]