The b******* the write the stories aren't interested in the truth, just their version.

Almost right - what you mean is they aren't interested in the truth, just selling papers through hysterical innaccurate reporting.

It is important in my view to report what the press are reporting, especially if the reporting is deeply innaccurate - as the purpose of this forum is to discuss issues that may affect the jobs or lives of professional pilots. This kind of reporting affects they way the industry is perceived by the public, so necessarily affects the job.

The Irish Times reported this incident in rather more sober fashion this morning - small sidebar article on page 8 with non-sensational headline.

An Aer Lingus spokesperson is quoted thus: "[The Aer Lingus plane] was under the control of London Air traffic Control (ATC) and was given a course by it. It was subsequently asked to change course. At all time they were operating according to the instruction of London ATC".

Which sounds very much like the controller issued a heading, thought 'Hmm, that's not going to work' and issued a new one.

Its perhaps not surprising that this made the papers given the Prince's invovlement (certianly not his biggest aviation incident!), good to see that one paper at least was capable of not embelishing the facts.

Speaking of inaccuracies in the media, watching the golf as I type this and Peter Allis just mis-identified a VC-10 as "the biggest transport plane in the world, Russian-built". Honestly! :p (They'd been told there would be an Antonov about) Still, nice unexpected highlight to hear the roar, stopped Tiger dead in his tracks for minute

Probably because the newspapers alerted us to a story which nobody else on PPrune had seen. How the papers report the story is up to them.

What is more important is that a professional ATCO, or crew or both reported a situation where they felt the safety of their aircraft was compromised and a possible collision risk had occurred. (From lost grey cells I think that is the definition of an Airprox. )

Interesting to see comment here that “the minimum horizontal separation was 3 miles, then there is no airprox.” Yes there was. It was filed with the CAA.

Also interesting to see that the NATS press neddy reports that
The National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which provides air traffic control for the UK, said in a statement that the safety of both aircraft was not "compromised" during the incident.

So why did someone file an airprox ?

Perhaps a more realistic approach is from the CAA who say "These details are subject to assessment by the independent UK Airprox Board. The board will decide on the seriousness of the incident and report later in the year. "

In the meantime thanks to the various news organisations who brought this to our attention. :ok: