Hey, everyone. I joined this website today in hopes that someone out there would be able access historical flight tracking data to either talk me down or validate what I thought was an extremely close call between my flight heading west bound and another plane that flew nearly under us in the opposite direction last Friday out of ORD.
DETAILS: I managed to fly out of O’Hare last Friday despite a full ground stop due to the Aurora, IL sabotage/fire on Virgin America Flight 231 bound for LAX. At approximately 10:42 am while flying at about 10,000 feet South of Galesburg, IL another airliner (possibly a 737) passed us going in the opposite direction in very close proximity to our aircraft just below and to the right of our airplane. In my shock I didn’t manage to catch the carrier.
From my vantage point looking out the window over our right wing i estimated this craft to be no farther than 600-1000 feet from our craft. Though it passed us so fast I’ll be honest that is just a guess. But all I know is that it was so close that I literally jumped back in my seat and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. It doesn’t appear anyone else saw it. When I alerted the flight attendant she just laughed and said seeing other planes was normal. But this didn’t seem normal to me at all.
I’ve attached a photoshop composite of what I remember seeing to the best of my recollection. The photo out the window was from my actual flight but the other airplane is a digital insertion. I’d be very curious to know if anyone could look up my flight history as well as the mystery flight that passed us going Eastbound and settle the issue if that was in fact a very close call between two large commercial airliners or if it was a “safe” distance but looked scarier than it actually was.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
CJ