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Maybe you can help solve a weird thing we saw yesterday.
I have lived near the flight path of Manchester airport all my life and 3 of us spotted something that was strange and never been witnessed before.
I was driving down the A6 through Doveholes in the Peak district yesterday morning, when I spotted 3 commercial jets flying very close together, in a sort of formation. Of course there was a good gap between each aircraft. However they were slightly diagonally apart and at a slightly different height. In that part of the Peak district any thing descending into Manchester airport looks low as the hills are so much higher than the flat bit of Cheshire where they come in to land.
As soon as was safe I stopped the car, all 3 of us dived out. By this time 2 jets had turned one way and were still very close, the 3rd was heading straight towards the airport.
They could have been stacking, but were so close it looked like some display team?
Could the professionals shed any light on what was happening and could any of the 3 jets be considered a near miss?
Could have been military transports. Voyager is an A330.
Tankers doing close formation training, perhaps.
One of my passengers is an ex air cadet and recognised at least one of the airlines. Thinking back, one could have been an A330.
It was tricky for me as I was driving to say what aircraft they were (normally a bit of a geek).
Also it was a strange experience, as a first you are in disbelief and think you're seeing things.
whilst the aircraft might look close laterally, they may have been at quite different altitudes. commercial separation is 1,000 ft vertically (IFR) or 500 ft (VFR) and c. 3miles laterally IIRC. Its hard to tell vertical separation from the ground sometimes.
Those were my thoughts Stoner, however they really did look closer than 3 miles. Also I know the topography of that area well. The others in the car agreed.
See if you can find it on Flightradar24. Though if it is military, it probably won't be shown. https://www.flightradar24.com/
Holding for arrivals from the south at Manchester is over a waypoint called DAYNE (Danebridge, not far from Buxton).
Not unusual for holding aircraft to be more or less on top of each other with 1000ft vertical separation. Also easy for them to look in formation, especially if lower aircraft an A320 and one above an A330 or similar.
Thanks Flaperon. That is the perfect explanation, as we were very close to that point.
They were stacked above Darwen and North Bolton yesterday morning, loads of them. Our stack is Rosun, there is also Mirsi near Wigan and Dayne as mentioned near Buxton.
Manchester is very busy in the mornings now, especially so with reduced stands due to T2 redevelopment work.
Busy stacking over Buxton at 1120 UTC yesterday (1220 lunchtime)
For your viewing pleasure https://www.flightradar24.com/2018-03-25/11:17/12x/53.31,-2.01/10
scuttler - that's really interesting. Thanks.
As previously said, sounds like a holding stack. Mine are down south for Heathrow, Luton and Stansted so don't know this particular one.
When you drive up the A3 to the M25 the Ockham hold is more or less at the junction so you see the same effect you described.
Separation requirement is 3 miles OR 1000ft. 1000ft doesn't actually look like much!