" But the ATSB report, the Australian Transport Safety Board, came out yesterday and it shows clearly that, if the airline pilot had followed the air traffic control instructions and just kept descending, that the planes would have passed many miles apart."
Ummm dick are we reading the same report. If the virgin pilot stayed on track they would not have passed by many miles. My understanding of the event was that if both ac kept climbing and descending as per profile they would have been at the same level with less than 1nm between them. the small diversion by virgin during the RA made very little difference to how close they came.