Near miss in skies over London.......????

[Drbio]

A photographer at a soccer match in London captured this "apparent near miss" in the skie over London. This is actually an optical illusion and the planes were shown to 1,000 feet apart as required during an investigation by DHL. Japan Air Lines performed a similar investigation reaqching the same conclusion.

Wow huh? Optical illusion.

[EricaLubarsky]

I told the FAA they shouldnt recycle the Blue Angel pilots as commercial ones

[mavs413]

The DHL plane is well below the other plane, the last picture shows it the best and I believe the 1,000 foot estimation is about right.

[Big Boy Laroux]

now, if we knew the respective sizes of the planes, it'd be easier to tell, of course. but that is pretty wicked.

[Male30Dan]

Originally Posted by mavs413

The DHL plane is well below the other plane, the last picture shows it the best and I believe the 1,000 foot estimation is about right.

Yeah... It looks like about a 1,152 feet seperation from the angle I see from the pics!

Very obvious!

[mercury_rev]

http://www.snopes.com/photos/airplane/closedhl.asp

[chumdawg]

1000 feet seems awfully damn close to me.

[mercury_rev]

Preliminary reports indicate that neither plane came within 2.5 miles of the other. Safety guidelines require that the minimal horizontal distance be 3 miles and the minimal vertical distance 1000 feet.

Besides, the planes have proximity warnings so neither ascends/descends into the other. And the control tower monitors their positions, especially at busy airports like Heathrow or Gatwick. But I'll ask my dad, who's a retired airline pilot, whether this was anything weird.

Interesting pictures though....Could be wrong, but I think the telephoto compression also explains why it looks like harder rain is falling at a baseball game. The telephoto centerfield perspective of home plate captures all the raindrops in between and creates the illusion of a heavy downpour when it may only be a sprinkle.

[sike]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

1000 feet seems awfully damn close to me.

excatly, thousand feet is still a near miss.