Originally Posted by
Winterapfel
How would the helicopter pilot know they had the CORRECT traffic in sight? It almost seems like the were looking at another aircraft. Can visual separation be successfully applied in such a busy night sky?
That is ultimately the call of the crew. ATC only gives the option, it's the PICs responsibility to assess whether it is feasible and safe. I don't personally know any ATCo who would be comfortable offering that in this particular scenario, but that's coming from the European perspective where we have nothing even close to the proximity of military/civilian mixed traffic. I only did a little approach familiarization and no tower work, but just talking to colleagues who did, I don't think I'd be comfortable to offer visual separation in that environment. But then again threat normalization is a pretty effective thing.