38,000ft over Puglia, Italia, 15 July 2008

Now I am no pilot and I hope everyone responsible new what was going on. Certainly, the passengers onboard our Royal Jordanian flight paid little attention. This Alitalia plane was flying somewhat faster than ours on a parallel path. It changed course slightly to its left, a heading towards our. As it approached the altitude delta went from near zero to maybe 3000ft (my radar was down, hard to tell exactly). It converged with our flight path and flew directly under us. Later, as it gained distance, strangely, the plane appeared again on out our right side and not off to the left as one might expect and regained the same altitude. Someone had changed course.

Perhaps, since we were over Italy the pilots felt at liberty to fly like they drive. Perhaps a more comforting scenario is this is somewhat of a standard procedure. Sometimes announcement are made in the cabin alerting, or maybe reassuring passengers of nearby plans and not to be alarmed, not this time.

Not knowing makes one wonder who else doesn’t know what is happening to make the friendly skies a little less friendly.