Originally Posted by 60av8tor

Spot on. I posted below on the other thread. To those of us that have done it, it's pretty clear how it could have happened. It's hard to explain how I felt when I first saw the video - like I had been there before. The bright lights, the halos, inside, outside, the chatter on the ICS and radio, trying to scan for traffic while maintaining exact lateral/vertical. Reading what you wrote, I instantly can tell you've been there as well. It's tragic and horrific. I was never assigned there and only flew in there a handful if times while at my regional, so had no knowledge this minimal separation was a thing. In hindsight it's amazing to me that there weren't better backstops to prevent something like this from happening.

--------Hindsight is 20/20, but the separation is mind boggling. The old 200' talking to, 300' phone number. But here we're comfortable with 100'-200' separating catastrophe... WTF. Anyone on here who's flown low level NVGs in high light/traffic areas can all probably relate to this incident - scanning for traffic, thinking you're looking at the traffic called not one of the numerous others in the vicinity, the visual illusions, through the NODs, under the NODs, inside, outside... I fart wrong , apply a little aft cycling and begin an unintentional climb...

To the lay person it's like WTF - how can anyone just fly right into a jet? (cue all the nut job conspiracies). To those that have done it, I think we see the fragility of what was going on in that airspace.------