Here is a video of AIRCRAFT NEAR MISS AND UNUSUAL EVENTS COMPILATIONLots of videos about crashes, but not many about near collisions and incidents
Sometimes the potential for crashes is more harrowing than the event itself.
What is an Aircraft near miss or loss of separation?
Pilots dislike the term “near-miss”. It’s a phrase that conjures in laymen minds two planes, inches apart, averting catastrophic disaster by a matter of seconds.
Perhaps one aircraft’s wing scrapes the undercarriage of another, sending sparks flying. Enter “near miss” into a search engine and the results in the news section would have you believe that planes are regularly dodging each other in a sky filled with chaos. The reality is much drier.
Pilot don’t use the term near-miss they call it a loss of separation
How far apart should planes fly?
The separation protocols are governed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and respective national authorities, such as the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US.
Aircraft should be kept 1,000 feet or 300 meters apart vertically. Horizontally, if aircraft are following the same path – or track – they should be 15 nautical miles apart.
Under other circumstances, planes should be at least five nautical miles apart, a distance allowed to drop to three when the aircraft enters the jurisdiction of an airport’s tower controller; on final approaches into airports (within 10 nautical miles) this is allowed to drop to 2.5.
