I don't have an axe to grind on RVSM -- I wish I flew something that got up to those levels. But I'm somewhat surprised to see this incident used to support the anti-RVSM case.
The incident revolves around the unexpected climb of the A340 after a turbulence encounter while the vertical separation between the aircraft was 1000 ft.
It strikes me that:
1) The turbulence encounter could easily have occured at the lower levels where the standard separation is and has always been 1000 ft.
2) In this case the A340 climbed 2400 ft before descending again. If no lateral separation had existed and the vertical separation had been 2000 ft, the aircraft would still have collided.
I was particularly surprised by the following comment.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Such was the vigour of the A340's climb in AoA law, the aircraft could well have climbed through FL 363 (thus provoking a TCAS RA with revised software version 7.0) in a very short time, even if the crew had applied nose-down sidestick as soon as they heard the (delayed) autopilot disconnect warning. The climb to FL 363 would have been sufficient to generate a TCAS RA in any adjacent aircraft at FL 370 but, if the intruder aircraft continues its climb, there can be no guarantee that an aircraft directly above it could respond in sufficient time to avoid a collision. Therefore, the RVSM safety case should not be driven by any assumption that a different crew might have contained the situation by making an earlier nose-down sidestick command than the A340 crew involved in this incident.</font>
There didn't seem to be a great deal of evidence that an aircraft at FL380 would have been able to react in time either.
By contrast, the incident seems to demonstrate that lateral separation of tracks under all circumstances is a sensible precuation.
Or am I missing the point of the anti-RVSM case?