faa, air traffic control, pilots

[TrophyHusband 0]

i saw something a little strange the other day and i was wondering if these things were reported and could i read about it. i was driving in the direction of boise airport. there were 4 a-10s circling the airport and then landing one by one, which is normal for that airport. at the same time, a southwest flight was on final. the landing gear was down. i can google earth the distance from my truck to the runway if it matters. one of the a-10s appeared to pass between the southwest plane and the runway. the southwest plane banked left and then right. the banks weren't hard. they looked more like he was changing what runway he would land on rather than doing an evasive manuver. (i can't remember if boise has two parallel runways, that is just the best way i can describe what i saw). i took my eyes off the planes because i was driving at the time, but when i looked back up, the southwest plane had aborted the landing and wasa doing a go-around. i don't know if the planes were close enough to be considered a near-miss*, but i've never been on a comercial flight that did these things on final.


* why is it a "near-miss"? to me, a near miss is when maybe the wing tips of two plane hit each other, nearly missing each other, but actually hitting. if they did miss each other, shouldn't it be a near-hit?

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[airtwardo 6]

http://www.ccygnus.nl/images/nearmiss.jpg

Maybe it's a near miss UNTIL they hit?

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Meux 0]

My guess is that Southwest side stepped to the other runway while the Warthogs were beating up the pattern on the other.

MH

[sctriguy 0]

I'm a military radar controller so I don't know all of the specifics with the Boise tower pattern, however it sounds like the A-10's were doing what is known as a tactical overhead or a regular overhead. When aircraft are doing that maneuver they are VFR (see and avoid) and are being sequenced by the tower. The air carrier (Southwest) may have been doing some "S" turns in order to build some additional seperation in. In any case this would NOT have been a near miss simply because the Southwest plane was most likely the only IFR airplane. In air traffic you technically don't seperate VFR traffic from IFR traffic. Please note I am not familiar with Boise's operating procedure and this is a very simplistic explanation of what I think was going on.

[popsjumper 2]

Am I the only one in the world who thinks in terms of "near hit" rather than near miss?



But then...my reality and yours.....

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[2fat2fly 0]

Actually, it would be "Near Miss" or "Nearly Hit"

and a miss is as good as a mile unless there's wake turbulance

I am not the man. But the man knows my name...and he's worried

[pilotdave 0]

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In any case this would NOT have been a near miss simply because the Southwest plane was most likely the only IFR airplane. In air traffic you technically don't seperate VFR traffic from IFR traffic.

I must be missing something. If two planes almost hit, that's a near miss. I don't care if they're VFR or IFR or talking to controllers in bangladesh. A control tower is responsible for safely sequencing the traffic. That would absolutely mean keeping the VFR traffic away from the IFR traffic or vice versa. Why else would we have control towers? It's a little different for radar controllers because they might not be talking to the VFR traffic. But they still have to keep the IFR traffic away from the VFR traffic.

I learned to fly at an A-10 base. I HOPE they don't do this in Boise, but where I flew, the A-10s used a UHF frequency and all the other traffic used VHF. The tower transmitted on both. It caused a lot of confusion... we'd here the tower randomly clear someone to land or whatever. Made it really hard to keep track of where the A-10s were.

And yeah, the A-10s always used an overhead approach. Just to make things more complicated.
Oh, and the near miss stuff... It doesn't mean "nearly a miss." It's a miss that was near. Ya know how many "shouldn't that be a near hit?" comments I've deleted on skydivingmovies.com??

Dave

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Am I the only one in the world who thinks in terms of "near hit" rather than near miss?

The FAA years ago adopted the term "near midair" to describe situations of aircraft in dangerous proximity. It seems fairly accurate.

[davedlg 0]

Go arounds happen. They are rare for large commercial airports where 95% of the planes are IFR and are sequenced well ahead of time. They happen a lot more often when there is VFR traffic coming and going at will. In this case where VFR mixes with IFR, sometimes the sequencing doesnt work out. I've seen it happen a few times where 737's have had to go around after trying to get into a non-towered airport because some 172 pilot turned onto final in front of him. Of course it's a lot more expensive and time consuming for a 737 to go around then for the 172 pilot.

[2fat2fly 0]

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Of course it's a lot more expensive and time consuming for a 737 to go around then for the 172 pilot.

Not for the 172 pilot, it's not

I am not the man. But the man knows my name...and he's worried

[diverdriver 5]

Quote

Quote

Am I the only one in the world who thinks in terms of "near hit" rather than near miss?

The FAA years ago adopted the term "near midair" to describe situations of aircraft in dangerous proximity. It seems fairly accurate.

NEMAC = NEar MidAir Collision

Near Miss = they came NEAR but MISSed. Abreaviated: Near Miss

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[diverdriver 5]

Quote

Go arounds happen. They are rare for large commercial airports where 95% of the planes are IFR and are sequenced well ahead of time. They happen a lot more often when there is VFR traffic coming and going at will. In this case where VFR mixes with IFR, sometimes the sequencing doesnt work out. I've seen it happen a few times where 737's have had to go around after trying to get into a non-towered airport because some 172 pilot turned onto final in front of him. Of course it's a lot more expensive and time consuming for a 737 to go around then for the 172 pilot.

At PHL go-arounds are very common. They try to land aircarft on runway 35 in between arrivals on 27R. I have never done as many go-arounds as I have at PHL. That includes my time flying skydivers. And both runways are landing part 121 flights. We do S-turns all the time for spacing and sometimes in the end we still have to go-around. Makes life interesting.

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[TrophyHusband 0]

i don't know what parameters for a near miss are, but i was approximately 4 1/4 miles southeast of the southeast end of the runways. between me and the runway were two planes, one southwest airline plane on final and one a-10 flying perpendicular to the runway and two more a-10s in line behind it and one in line in front of it.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com