I have spent most of the last week in the United States, joining the American half of my family for thanksgiving. It was great to see everybody again, and fun to see the smaller members of the family getting a step taller since we last saw them a few months ago.
Most of the weekend however has been eaten up by the long journey home, leaving Maryland at 4:30am to catch a 7am flight from IAD to SFO. Personally I enjoy the long haul flights, they are usually a great time to think, clear down my inbox and work through the constantly growing backlog of reading materials. Very tranquil and productive periods of time.
Today was a little more dramatic than usual. United was my carrier from IAD to SFO, flight number UA 187 (departed November 24).
The approach to SFO was the usual route, over some multicolored fields of some sort that I have been meaning to find out about for years, but never seem to get around to asking anybody who might know.
As we got about a couple of miles out from the runway a JAL 747 could be seen in the distance running in parallel to our flight, the person sat next to me pointed it out first of all… saying something about the fact that you don’t usually see a 747 so clearly while in flight. It was a fine, clear and sunny San Francisco morning!
Oddly the JAL 747 seemed to get closer over the next couple of minutes, and the view got clearer. I assumed that SFO was running a parallel runway system and that we were about to partake in some sort of spectacular synchronized landing.
As we got to about 500ft above the ground (I’m neither an altimeter or a pilot so I’m only guessing at the height) it became evident that something else was happening. The JAL flight seemed to be turned slightly in our direction, and myself and the passenger next to me began to wonder if the two planes were not heading for the same runway as apposed to adjacent ones.
A moment later, when the JAL flight was closer than any other plane I have seen from an aircraft window seat the JAL flight banked hard left and climbed out of harms way.
I’m sure nobody was really at risk throughout the five minutes or so that elapsed while all this took place, but I am now curious about what actually happened. As you would expect the United crew didn’t pass any comment on the event. If anybody reading this knows of an archive where such things are documented I would welcome a link to it.
Maybe it was just an everyday occurrence, but it didn’t feel like one. For me at least, it was a little close for comfort!
My first reaction to reading this was envy — if only I could have been there with my Nikon.
On further consideration … congratulations on your survival, since it sounds as if that was at some risk!
There was a study released recently in the US that showed there are more cloase-call incidents in US airspace than most people would think. But I’m not sure if there’s a repository of these things, or you have to wait for a future study to be released.
Yeah.. If it was me I would have needed the D300 with a VR lens. (Okay, I just want a new toy). All kidding aside that is scary.