Another Close Call (This time IAH)
 

While again no one hurt, no planes collided, and TCAS worked as planned but this is the third time it's been headline news on tv in a week. All three near misses involving United planes. Can happen to anyone, and certainly happens to them all from time to time, but again, all of them seem to be happening on United planes.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/23/travel...html?hpt=hp_t2

Complete non-story. :td:

With an operation the scale of United mainline (~5k flight hours a day) there's TCAS RAs every day. In a MIT LL study they saw a TCAS RA on average every 116 flight hours.

While I'm no fan of UA, it seems that the media is sort of going a bit one-sided with these stories:

- the pacific near miss which involved a US Airways jet in one direction and United in the other; most stories just referenced United
- The EWR near miss, which led with United (most stories mentioned ExpressJet too)
- This story, which involves only United

There have no doubt been a number of other "near miss" stories that did not get the media attention that these did. Is the media picking on UA or is it a broader trend? I tend to think these things happen with roughly the same percentage on all carriers. United's standard deviation is no different than Southwest's.

It's the media that's responsible for the story here, no?

Agree with all your points - and although I'm certainly no huge fan of UA - I don't see how anyone can pin this to them - IMO ATC is the issue, not UA. In fact it may be because of UA pilot skill that these stories weren't really a story...

No kidding. Even the article admits this:

"There were 4,394 near misses in the year ending September 1, 2012"

So... there are over 15 of these a day, and this story is special because....?

All of these stories are just coming to light because of a blog poster. The EWR near miss happened before the supposed it Hawaii near miss, however the EWR one was reported the day of. The Hawaii one didn't come to light until a few weeks after the fact because the blogger wanted the attention.

I agree UA is being unfairly singled out on these stories - the bigger issue is the fact that ATC is using 1950s technology in 2014. IMO the real question is whether the FAA will implement needed fixes before a disaster happens or if it will take a disaster to push them to implement needed changes.

The EWR is still the most worrying to me since 4L/22R remains closed for another week causing the ridiculous situation of taking off and landing from runways that intersect at one of the nation's busiest airports

Agreed, though I would add the NYC airspace as a whole looks scary to me.

About a year ago a DL widebody had a "near miss", caused because there was no place for it to go upon an aborted landing at JFK. Certainly the situation was odd (one airport was reversed, the other not; and the jet in front of the DL jet also aborted). But still this was a case of a stressed system being less fault tolerant.

I certainly think the blogger is total B.S.

cf. SFO, LGA, JFK and countless others where this is a normal part of the operation. It's a capacity issue, not a "ridiculous" safety issue.

It is actually a ridiculous safety situation. I'm not sure what you're getting at the capacity issue worsens the safety issue. You can't separate the two, but to claim it's not a safety issue is foolish and like I said it has nothing to do with UA

Of course it has nothing to do with UA. That's not the point. If this was a "ridiculous safety situation" then major airports wouldn't be operating with this configuration. With respect, you're blowing a fairly minor consideration way out of proportion.

Near Miss vs Near Midair Collision
 

Agreed this does not appear to be a UA issue. And Near Misses (aka Loss of Separation) do happen more than people think due to how a near miss is defined.

But a Near Midair Collision, which occurred at EWR earlier is a different story. Those are more rare and more dangerous. I do not know if they have classified the Hawaii incident as a Near Miss (loss of separation) or a Near Midair Collision. I think they are still reviewing. But it it also was a Near Midair Collision, then having 2 of those a few weeks apart does concern me.

What 1950s technology are you referring to? I assume it's been a while since you've toured an ATC facility. While they still obviously use radar, the technology available to controllers is far more advanced than it was 60 years ago. ADS-B, which is currently undergoing implementation and will mandatory for most aircraft in 2020, will allow for entirely new ways of managing air traffic. While I have many criticisms of the ADS-B rollout, characterizing the ATC as a stodgy old system that is not adapting to changing technology is a simply incorrect.

The only thing remotely worrying about the EWR situation is that it is a change from what the controllers are used to dealing with, and any deviation from standard procedure adds a trivial amount of risk.
I've never seen a differentiation between a "near miss" or a "near midair collision" in any official report. In fact, I rarely see either term used in any sort of official capacity.

The reason most likely that United is being singled out now is that most people (their customers, employees, and many in the media) are frustrated with them.

I am no expert here, but there are 2 terms that appear defined and used in aviation. Hopefully someone who really knows can chime in. But:

per 7.6.3b,
Definition. A near midair collision is defined as an incident associated with the operation of an aircraft in which a possibility of collision occurs as a result of proximity of less than 500 feet to another aircraft, or a report is received from a pilot or a flight crew member stating that a collision hazard existed between two or more aircraft.

The more general term 'near miss' is not really a FAA term, but is often used in place of "Loss of Separation" which is defined as the requirement to maintain either a set horizontal separation (I think 5 miles) OR a set vertical separation (I think 500 or maybe 1000 feet). But I think the exact amounts vary by location and airspace, so the 5 miles or 500 feet might not be right.

So "Loss of Separation" is more common and often referred to as a 'near miss'. "Near Midair Collision" is the one that makes you pee in your pants.