When you’re 35,000 feet in the air, it can be hard to imagine being paired with anything other than clouds.
Whether you enjoy the experience of flying or not, the sky seems to stretch on forever – devoid of all other life.
But one pilot discovered a new fear in passengers by showing how close planes fly side by side.
The pilot, known online as @flyhigh738, shocked TikTokers after he revealed footage of nearby planes while in the air.
A TikToker and pilot have sparked a new fear among passengers after revealing how close planes actually fly side by side
The pilot showed some 3,000 followers that the plane in front of him was as close as 1,000 feet away
Sharing the video with his 3,026 followers, the pilot wrote: ‘When you’re traveling by plane and think the sky is so big you’re alone up there,’ showing a seemingly clear sky.
The pilot moved the camera to reveal another plane in the sky and said: ‘But you’re actually almost always flying so close to other planes.’
The pilot compared the footage to a ‘kind of freeway in the sky’, which he says happens when ‘standard airways’ are followed.
According to BAA Training: ‘Commercial aircraft flying below 29,000 feet must maintain a vertical separation of 1,000 feet.
‘Any higher and the separation increases to 2,000 feet, except in airspace where Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) applies.’
The pilot revealed that the plane was as close as 1000 feet away, and asked, “Beautiful, isn’t it?” to which he received a mixed response.
Since it was posted, the now-viral video has garnered nearly 770,000 views and hundreds of mixed reactions.
One rather blunt user wrote: ‘No, it looks scary.’
Asking his TikTok followers ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ the pilot drew very mixed reactions from people
To which the pilot replied: ‘Why is it scary? It is so fascinating to see other planes flying around you up there.
One user commented: ‘Information I don’t need to know… scary and impressive,’ another added: ‘Too close for me.’
One person wrote: ‘I’ve been flying all my life, but the older I get the more unnatural I think it is to fly through the air in a tube at 35,000 feet.’
One curious passenger asked: ‘And you don’t flash your lights at each other like truck drivers or buses etc?!’
To which the pilot replied: ‘We do sometimes, but at night!’