So Southwest had a near miss with a private plane and had to take evasive action. Anyone care to guess what kind of over reaction will take place and how it will affect general aviation? I mean since the Christmas bomber we can no longer get up from our seats 1 hour prior to arrival. So what's to say that they wont go overboard with this? I'm already seeing people on different news channels talk about how this "goes to show" that we need more safety measures in the air.

Southwest Airlines Pilot Takes Evasive Action to Avoid Collision, 2 Injured - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

 

Hernando, just keep your god d@ng plane out of commercial air space ....

 

There's some missing details in there. The SWA flight would have been on an IFR flight plan, which requires separation services from Air Traffic Control. Why they weren't warned of another aircraft in their vicinity will be one of the questions looked into. It doesn't say exactly where it happened, so I can't check the charts to see if the GA plane was in controlled airspace or not, or was simply out on a VFR day exercising his right to fly.

It'll be interesting to see the report.

 

Yes it will be interesting to see the report.

 

Smells like an over-reaction to a TCAS or ATC traffic alert. I doubt they were close enough to be especially dangerous in controlled airspace.

My guess would be nothing much will come of it. Media hand-wringing aside, FAA/NTSB tend to take most of the FUD out of such incidents, and the media has long since forgotten about it by the time reports are released.

Look at the mid-air between that GA aircraft and sight-seeing helicopter over the Hudson a short while back. It happens, there's media hand-wringing for a while, and then, rightly so, it goes away and we get on with our lives having learned from the incident.