I'm not watching the video again from the Yahoo homepage - but that is what I think they told the Cessna pilot to do. He called the traffic (United) in sight and they told him to 'maintain visual separation' and to pass behind the 777.

I'm not sure what the FAA's definition of a near midair is, but the Naval Safety Center does/did have one, partly due to the increase in reporting of such occurrances both overseas and in the special use airspace (one such being the R-2508). If the true distance is as ATC reported 300' vertically and 1,500' horizontally and the Cessna pilot saw the traffic - it wouldn't have met that definition.

The United flight certainly needs to know about such traffic in the area I would think and they should ask some questions, but this seems to possibly be growing some bigger/faster legs than required in my opinion now that the media has picked up on it.

USMCFLYR