Originally Posted by
Lake1952
While the exact determination of how close the two aircraft came to each other is the subject of intense scrutiny, it is really only important for the sensational value in my opinion. No matter how small or large the separation truly was, the entire episode was a near disaster...
I respectfully disagree. Understanding the detail here may well lead to increased situational awareness for tower and aircrew. So the next controller will not issue a clearance that tight, the next Fedex pilot will go around earlier and the next SW pilot will reject such a clearance. This is the entire point in accident and incident investigations. And nobody can say "no crash, what's the fuzz".