The EWR event is troubling as I see that as an ops issues as there should have been more forced capacity cuts to relieve the stress.

You're right it's not a safety issue :rolleyes:

And if you actually read my OP you'd understand that my comment was focused specifically on the period of time where a major US airport (EWR) is forced to use intersecting runways because of runway closures. I didn't say the actual configuration was an issue but it is when other factors temporarily close other runways and you maintain the same volume of traffic

Another Close Call (This time IAH)
 

This was #1 story on CNN OutFront tonight with the whole graphic analysis explanation and Richard Quest and Mary Schiavo discussion. The general feeling was yes it happens a lot but the concern is if there is any systematic issue behind it and can the risk be further reduced...

Oh I read it all right. Your point above is incorrect: http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...oject/7107735/

Would you like to reconsider your alarmist post in light of that?

Nope it's still an issue that needs to be solved. If it wasn't a problem the incident at EWR wouldn't have occurred but feel free to sweep that under the rug - that always helps in these situations.

Probably not worth belaboring the point, but the point I'm trying to make is that near midair collision and loss of separation are interchangeable. The only practical difference is that a report of a near midair collision is initiated by a pilot. There is an implied level of severity when a pilot is spooked enough to feel compelled to report it, but in reporting (and in reports to the media) they are tweeted the same.

btw, standard separation is 5 miles and 1000 feet for en-route operations, but you're right that it varies depending on area and situation (most terminal areas are 3 miles; diverging aircraft have different standards, etc.)

What scares me is that we still require discrete 1,000' altitude steps, when most planes can maintain these altitudes to within a few feet. I'm a mathematician, and to me this turns a 3D collision problem into several 2D collision problems. I don't like that.

Write one's compass heading using a scale of 0 to 1,000 feet, rather than the conventional 0 to 360 degrees (or zero to two pi radians). Now add that to your assigned altitude. This spreads out flights from a collision perspective, even if one can no longer tell a politician one has "1,000 feet of separation."

In other engineering realms, where not every lay person needs to have an opinion, this kind of thinking is pervasive. Take error-correcting codes, which recover garbled messages. It's all about spreading out potential messages in the communication space, again to avoid collisions when messages stray.

My responses from pilots have displayed an extraordinary adherence to conventional wisdom. I suppose I can draw comfort from that, given their responsibilities. But there are 154 people from Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 who would still be alive if we didn't quantize flying altitude assignments so "1 + 1 = 2" crudely. And that could happen again.

ATC updated some of its "1950s technology" and the result was 1 aircraft flying outside of the automation's parameters causing a system crash that caused a ground stop for all airports in the Los Angeles area and LAS.

The "ridiculous situation of taking off and and landing from runways that intersect" is a daily occurrence for the 8th busiest airport in the US so the issue is more of controller experience with that type of operations.

I had a near miss with an aborted landing last year at EWR and the media, to my knowledge, didn't cover it. Perhaps they should have, I would feel better if the FAA would take strick action when it happened. I surmise that the media is still riding a fear factor post MH370 and coupling with UA blood in the water stories in finance news.

If you place real portent on anything the filler pieces (or even some major headlines) the mass media is reporting on I think you need to try and peer through the veil just a little. Sometimes the only thing that makes the story important is that they are covering it.

Nobody is sweeping anything under the rug, just introducing a dose of logic and realism to the discussion. Your logic is completely flawed on this point - runway 29 is regularly used at EWR under normal operations, with aircraft taking off from 22R. An incident like this could happen then, just as it could happen at any of the other hundreds of airports with intersecting runways. It's really that simple.

How do you know you had a "near miss"? Missed approaches and go-around happen routinely, and do not constitute a near miss. Very often they are performed because the aircraft in front was too slow to vacate the runway - that's not a "near miss". Do you have any specifics of what happened, other than the missed approach?

Only that the First Officer got on the PA, stammering and repeating herself after we leveled off, saying that someone "pulled on to the runway ahead of us".