There is a huge piece of this puzzle that no has mentioned and is in fact an excellent topic for perhaps another thread. If you listen to 888BW... twice he is informed by the controller of traffic and both times he very quickly reports traffic in sight without hessitation. Now think about the airspace this guy is flying through.... there are a lot of planes flying around... and the traffic he is being warned about may not be the plane he thinks... plus... what happens when you report traffic in sight? The controller hands off the separation responsibility to you by saying "maintain visual separation". 888BW reported Jet Blue 182 heavy in sight but a minute later felt he had to dive out of the way to avoid the jet... well, if he said he had the aircraft in sight then he should have maintained visual separation from that aircraft at all times. His bad. As soon as he said "traffic in sight" he took on the responsibility of staying clear of that aircraft and is essentially freeing the controller of that responsibility. WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT IN SUCH BUSY AIRSPACE????
Here is my point for perhaps a different thread. In a radar environment, ATC will maintain separation for all IFR aircraft and if a VFR aircraft is receiving advisories (flight following) ATC will provide separation on a work-load basis... If the VFR aircraft is in a Bravo airspace he/she will receive separation just like any IFR aircraft. So... if ATC warns you about traffic and will keep doing so the closer you get and will eventually turn both aircraft so they do not hit, why then would you be so quick to report the traffic in sight? If you report the traffic in sight (and the other traffic reports you in sight) and it's either the wrong traffic or you loose sight of the traffic, you have now put yourself in an unneccesarily less safe situation and possibly on a collision course with another aircraft because ATC aint warning you of each other anymore. ATC thinks you both have each other in sight and will maintain visual separation from each other. When ATC tells me I have traffic, I only report "traffic in sight" when I am absolutely positive that I have the traffic they are warning me about and I only do so at a point where I'm positive we could never collide... So I rarely report the traffic in sight...I simply tell them I'm looking for traffic even if I have the traffic in sight. I may see the traffic but I let ATC work for me and make sure I have that extra safety layer. I always look for traffic when advised and will allways maintain separation when I see traffic, but I rarely give up that extra layer of separation safety that a radar environment provides. As soon as I report traffic in sight I then must take on the complete responsibility for separation... Why should I do that when there is an ATC guy who can help me just in case I get busy and loose sight of that traffic? Someone please give me a good reason why I should reduce my separation safety when ATC will help me do it. I hear aircraft report traffic in sight all the time and then procede to almost collide. It's dumb... why do it when you can simply say you are still looking for traffic? OK... Flame on.
P.S. I will post a new thread titled "why report traffic in sight" with this potentially controversial topic just in case this thread is dead.
