"Pre-owned,""near miss," "s/he"

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 9/28/01 3:25:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, preston at MSU.EDU
writes:

> I guess nobody missed my "ordinary language" proviso. (I don't read
>  the Airman's Information manual).

First, I was pointing out that your definition became incorrect when you
included the statement "and there is no damage,"  It is not well known to
non-aviators, but injuries and damage can occur from a near miss.  In fact,
there is one scenario (luckily, very easily avoided) in which a near miss can
cause one plane to crash.

Second, any time you hear a news report about a "near miss", almost certainly
the report was based at least partly on statements from
   - the flight crew
   - an airline spokesperson (or the owner of the plane, if not an airline)
   - an FAA spokesperson
and all of the above have some familiarity with the Airman's Information
Manual (by the way, the "M" in "Manual" is capitalized).

Controllers have their own jargon for describing these situations.  I doubt
that the general public would recognize the terms "range ring", "deal",
"snitch", "seven mile club", and "system fault."  However, I did once hear a
controller say "two airliners got a close look at each other."

           - Jim Landau