How close is too close?

delly

Folks, just wondering how close two aircraft can get before its considered a near miss? I was in Paris last weekend and while outside my hotel a twin engined plane, a Piper or similar looked liked it was heading at a 90 degree angle into a helicopters flightpath. At a very rough estimation I reckoned they were maybe 300/400 metres from each other at the closest point. I recorded it on my phone but haven't actually uploaded it yet to see if I captured it, what with the sun being in my eyes. I'm just curious however if this would be considered normal?

Jammyc

I'm open to correction here, but isnt standard separation 5 miles or 1000ft?

highlydebased

VFR is different- they maintain their own seperation

bombs away

Usually it's 5 miles lateral and a 1000ft vertical altough it depends on the airspace, Dublin approach is 3 miles lateral for instance. As Neon has mentioned VFR's maintain their own separation from each other.

It might have looked closer then it actually was as you were looking at it from an angle.

delly

Thanks for the input guys, i've uploaded it to youtube so have a look and see what you think. I didn't get it perfectly framed but enough so that you can see the flight paths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZOyWg4JGN8

EchoIndia

Unless you know the respective heights and probably also whether they were aware of each other's presence, it's impossible to tell if there was a real risk here.

thermo

id say a near miss is when you can see the other pilot in the cockpit!

andy_g

thermo wrote: »

id say a near miss is when you can see the other pilot in the cockpit!

Thats a very good point Larry. Welcome to A+A. Andy