Here here.
I teach TCAS at my company and one of the first teaching points on the course is to emphasise that RAs and Airproxs are different entities which just happen to overlap in some circumstances.
I.E. you can have an RA without a loss of separation. You can also have an airprox without an RA.
Both require reporting, and at our company its the same form, but they should be reported as one or the other unless it actually was both.
Having said that, one is always aware of the need to cover one backside as far as paperwork is concerned.
E.G. I recently had an encounter with a light aircraft which had strayed into the zone and wandered across my approach path. There was no danger, but I did think that technically separation might have been compromised.
ATC said they were filing a report. I thought about whether I should file an airprox or not. In the end I decided to call it an airprox on the principle that the investigators, with access to the radar data, could always decide that it wasn't. However, if I didn't report it, a possible bollocking would come my way.
I didn't realise that this would cause particular problems for the controllers involved, so I must apologise. With the benefit of hindsight I would have called it 'Go around caused by lost light aircraft' or some such.
I will circulate, to the rest of our crews, the importance of not filing as an airprox unless warranted.
CPB.
[This message has been edited by Capt Pit Bull (edited 15 October 2000).]