A Photoshop Job, an optical illusion - or a nightmare

[DAB]

The photo is from the BBC News website. It shows what appears to be a near miss between a DHL cargo plane and a Japanese airliner. Except, no one in either air traffic control at Heathrow or in the two airlines is aware of a near miss. Apparently no safety systems sounded an alert, nor did the pilots on either plan notice anything amiss.

My instinct is optical illusion, but I no almost nothing about airliners so I can't access what they are, their sizes etc.

Any one provide me with any clues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/uk_enl_1138567284/html/1.stm

[Skybird]

I agree on that it is an illusion. If the planes were at same level of altitude, the Japanese surely would have been hit by th full effect of the DHL-plane's engines, resulting in at least some vibrations and tremors, probably trouble with their own engines that were picking up the jetstream, both causing results which would have been reported by excited (or freigthened :) ) passengers.

Think the airliner was a good ammount of altitude below the DHL plane.

But a scaring shot it is.

[DAB]

The effect of the wash (or whatever they call displacement on a plane) - or lack of it made me curious too. But there are other reasons why the photo makes me suspicious.

Neither of those plans is a 747, so the fusularge must be of a simular diamiter. Yet the rear plane looks much smaller then the other one. If the tail of the foremost plane overlapped the smaller plane behind, i'd accept it was an illusion and the rearmost plane was higher.

But the way round they have doesn't look right - hence my suspicion it may be photoshopped.

[Konovalov]

I agree on that it is an illusion.

:yep: Saw this pic in the newspaper on the weekend and it caught my attention. In some ways it was strange because only last week I was watching a documentry here in the UK about the number of near miss incidents over UK airspace and the concern that it is only a matter of time before there is a mid-air collision over UK due to congested airspace. It was a little scary really particularly if you live around LHR area.

[Konovalov]

Remember this incident in Germany not long ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2082331.stm

[Winston]

The smaller one is a 737 and the larger looks like a 777. The 777 is a much larger aircraft with a length/wingspan of 242/199 feet respectively while the 737 is less than half that size coming in at 109/94. If they were close then the 737 would appear much smaller in this picture. Either this picture was taken with a good camera and a large lens with the 737 flying at a lower altitude or it’s a photo shop. The latter is more likely as there seems to be some sort of digital artefacts about the 777 tail, some sort of pixilation.

[XabbaRus]

My thoughts too. I noticed tha pixelation on the JAL plane.

And the DHL plane is below and behind and seemingly unaffected by jet wash.

Thing is the Daily Mail in the UK ahs a front page article proclaiming the terrors of air travel in the UK.

What next?

[Mustang]

There are really only two possibilities,

1) This Image has been edited by Photoshop type software. My reason for suspecting this is because there is really no possibility the two planes could be that close and not be effected. Either the back would have a spin out because of the 'Jet Wash' or the front would have severe turbulance because the back plane was 'Drafting her' secondoly these were passenger jets so I'm sure any passengers would have reported it. Also, notice the left wing of the smaller craft there is an irregular blur not constant with the film grain. It looks to me like Smudge and Push from PSP.

2) In the case the FAA has covered up the event do to a large blunder on their part the photo had to be taken at a 75-Degree angle. The smaller jet is closer but is of a smaller jet so it appears like it is further away. The larger one is massive but is higher then the smaller one.

the effect could be the smaller plane is at 15,00 feet and the larger one at 30,000 feet if at a 75-Degree angle with the ship at the bottom steering to a bearing 175 to the JL plane, a path that go under the JL then it would appear they were closer to each other but in reality were Thousands of feet away.

[The Avon Lady]

www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/1615/+%2Bphotography+%2Btricks+%2B%22telephoto+lense%22 +%2Bdistance&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6] (http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:wEvXoQ7ZeiYJ:Photographic hoax[/u].

(Sorry for linking to the cached page copy. The original seems to no longer exist).

[Type941]

Obviously this isn't a photoshop, it being linked directly from BBC and all. :know:

[TteFAboB]

What happened to UFOs?

Everybody got tired of them so now we play with real aircraft?

Alien conspiracy I tell you, now that our guard is low, they might invade anytime soon.

[blue3golf]

I'm gonna have to say its probably just an illusion caused by the size and altitude of the planes in conjunction with the angle of the photographer. If they really were that close even in a cover up a passenger woulda said something by now. Somebody would look for that 15 minutes of fame.

[Skybird]

Remember this incident in Germany not long ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2082331.stm

That was due to a controller who made a wrong evaluation of what was going on, with his colleague at that station having a brake (not allowed, two personelles were minimum at that station), and half of Skyguard's radar system beeing offline for repair and maintenance. Later, the controller was killed by a desparate father who lost his daughter in the crash. But the technical system in the planes, as far as we do know, worked as intended and rang the alarm bell. There just was no time left in the end, because the initial alarm levels of the onboard warning system were NOT confirmed by Skyguard. human failure on side of that controller.

I stress again, if the planes were in a position as the photo seem to indicate at first glance, then the small one couldn'T have avoided to be affected physically by the jetstream or desperate maneuvers- and this would have been reported be the passangers. As far as I understood, noone complained about sudden movements, vibrations, or anything.

In Frankfurt they have some unique system (unique worldwide) that allows them to stagger incoming planes in five levels, reducing the horizontal space between them to ridiculously small ammounts, letting them land at far smaller intervals, and by precise timing avoiding the jetstreams of the planes in front. The window for errors in timing is of minimal margin only. No good idea, imo.

[Type941]

I stress again, if the planes were in a position as the photo seem to indicate at first glance, then the small one couldn'T have avoided to be affected physically by the jetstream or desperate maneuvers- and this would have been reported be the passangers. As far as I understood, noone complained about sudden movements, vibrations, or anything.


That doesn't mean it didn't happen. than again you can be a pilot and know more about this but I can accept that it's true. And if not - who cares. :up:

[sonar732]

I stress again, if the planes were in a position as the photo seem to indicate at first glance, then the small one couldn'T have avoided to be affected physically by the jetstream or desperate maneuvers- and this would have been reported be the passangers. As far as I understood, noone complained about sudden movements, vibrations, or anything.

I agree...you'd think that the jetwash alone would be bad enough to cause something to happen. Why else do airports wait a certain time period to let another plane go up after one lands or takes off?

[Iceman]

Im pretty good with photo shop dat looks like photoshop to me couple o reasons ...one the angle of the planes moving... there is no way the one would not have hit the other in the tail given both moving at hundreds miles per hr...second....pretty chancy someone on the ground snaping that at the exact...and I mean Exact moment that happened...

If not I'll definatly buy the optical illusion theory. :) :up: