how close can aircraft be while in flight ?

johnson1

Hi Guys

This may be a thing of nothing but I was returning to dublin from malaga on sunday last with aerlingus and sometime in to the flight I noticed another aircraft fly past us. Now I've seen this many times before but this was so close it made me uncomfortable.

It was a smaller plane with the jet engines at the rear and maybe 8 windows on the side. I would say it was less than 500 metres away and only a few metres vertical and after it flew past we were in it's trail within a couple of seconds.


I wanted to contact aerlingus but they only have a postal address as far as I can see on the website.

So am I overreacting ? is this common ?

Delta Kilo

Chances are it was perfectly fine.

Minimum afaik is either 1nm apart at the same altitude or 1,000ft vertical, whichever is the case.

It is very difficult to judge distance in the air because you have nothing to give you a scale or a reference point. It is similar to judging distance at sea.

johnson1

your probably right delta kilo, i'm not a great flyer so in future maybe i'll just keep the window down

Ilyushin76

I would say it was perfectly safe.As Detla kilo said it is very hard to judge distances when in the sky.If you knew where you were flying over you could look up casper and see how close it was.

Here is a good video about air traffic in the sky.http://www.euronews.net/2011/07/19/radar-online-set-to-enhance-safety-in-the-air/

A320

"TCAS system test ok" in my best synthetic voice

Names

Standard separation is 1,000 vertically or 5nm laterally.( 3mm lateral separation can be used in the Dublin CTA) wat you saw was normal,you cannot judge distance in the air,things often appear closer than they are

Nforce

Smaller aircraft can fly a little closer,though...

GoGoGadget

Yeah bang on, with TCAS you would have noticed the plane sharply climb or descend if there was a risk of collision.

adamski8

Names wrote: »

Standard separation is 1,000 vertically or 5nm laterally.( 3mm lateral separation can be used in the Dublin CTA) wat you saw was normal,you cannot judge distance in the air,things often appear closer than they are

well you can't say for certain, bet there is a lot of violating of that (not intentionally). just because its a rule doesnt mean its never broken
the way everyone is talking is as if there have never been near misses. also there been quite a few mid air collision even with TCAS.

xflyer

You can be almost certain that there was no loss of separation in this case and in any case even with an inadvertant loss of separation, it's rare for it to be dangerous even if it's reportable.

The photo of Eddie Goggins in G-IJMI and Gerry Humphreys in HUM is actually appropriate. Eddie had a mid air in an air race at very low level. His parachute only just opened before he hit the sea. Gerry too had his low level parachute moment. He threw away one of HM's Harriers. He reckons he's a couple of inches shorter since that ejection.

Both superb pilots.

GoGoGadget

Never heard about Gerry's moment, do you have any info on it, be interesting to read.

xflyer

This is the official RAF report. http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/maas_19860617_xw916.pdf


Gerry's telling of it is more entertaining. He was very lucky.

GoGoGadget

Cheers man

Nforce

xflyer wrote: »

You can be almost certain that there was no loss of separation in this case and in any case even with an inadvertant loss of separation, it's rare for it to be dangerous even if it's reportable.

The photo of Eddie Goggins in G-IJMI and Gerry Humphreys in HUM is actually appropriate. Eddie had a mid air in an air race at very low level. His parachute only just opened before he hit the sea. Gerry too had his low level parachute moment. He threw away one of HM's Harriers. He reckons he's a couple of inches shorter since that ejection.

Both superb pilots.

Boy racers the both of them....they love to do the auld donuts!!!

http://pix.ie/nforce/2508008/size/800

http://pix.ie/nforce/2508122/size/800


I jest!

:)

In fairness though...the Harriers had a bit of a reputation for the Martin Baker let down.

xflyer

Yes, Eddie once deliberately blew smoke in my face, the hooligan! But as it contains lanolin, my skin had never been so soft!

Tenger

xflyer wrote: »

.....Gerry too had his low level parachute moment. He threw away one of HM's Harriers.......

He was just ahead of the trend.....they have all been thrown away now......

finbarrk

Names wrote: »

Standard separation is 1,000 vertically or 5nm laterally.( 3mm lateral separation can be used in the Dublin CTA) wat you saw was normal,you cannot judge distance in the air,things often appear closer than they are

What distance is 5nm? Or 3mm? Forgive my innocence.
Thanks.

pclancy

NM= Nautical Mile. Approx 1.8Km.

Ships and Aircraft share many terms, distance being one of them.

I've never known why the entire aviation world hasnt gone metric but i know our Russian and Asian friends refer to aviation height in metres.

cml387

finbarrk wrote: »

What distance is 5nm? Or 3mm? Forgive my innocence.
Thanks.

3mm is intended to be a new RVSM standard:)

adamski8

xflyer wrote: »

You can be almost certain that there was no loss of separation in this case and in any case even with an inadvertant loss of separation, it's rare for it to be dangerous even if it's reportable.

can you explain this to me? sounds like a contradiction

Milan Cobian

well you can't say for certain, bet there is a lot of violating of that (not intentionally).

Clearly you've never actually flown IFR so your opinion is rather worthless. :rolleyes:
Loss of separation is an extremely rare event.

xflyer

adamski8 wrote: »

can you explain this to me? sounds like a contradiction

Well to put it simply you could pass 900 vertically or 4.9NM horizontally. That would be a loss of separation. But is is unsafe? Practically speaking it would be rare even to get as close as 5NM. I'm sure ATC have their own limits. And the TCAS now alerts pilots even when a potential conflict is possible.