It's an optical illusion. The planes aren't really that close together. The person who shot the video is using a telephoto lens and is zoomed way in. This compresses the space and flattens it out so it's hard to judge distance. Also the plane in front is smaller than the one in the back which heightens the illusion. It's a really cool shot!
Definitely the windows, but recent planes have gone with huge turbines so it's not the most reliable tell. I don't know Airbus well but the turbines on a 737-800 or Mac are pretty big compared to a - 300 or A320
It’s not as rare as you may think. I used to work at a weather service office located right near the end of one of the runways at IAD and it would happen a few times a day if the airport was busy and the winds were such that they were coming in from our side.
SOP (like 99% sure). Many airports have parallel runways with more than enough clearance for two simultaneous landings. I have been a passenger in this scenario at least four times that I can think of, and I don't fly that much. I think those were in Denver, SFO and LAX. I don't recall there being any situation that would be considered an emergency on any of those.
Yeah, this is SFO and these runways are 750 ft / 230 m apart. Definitely not a lot of room for error, but the telephoto zoom makes this look a lot closer than it really is
The runways are likely pretty far apart. Telephoto lenses compress depth and make objects appear closer to each other. It's why telephoto lenses are used for portraits to make facial features look more attractive and with slightly less depth.
Looks like San Francisco. There are two main runways there, this is common. I think it's just time and chance to land at the same exact moment like this.
So the Alaska is a e175 which is about 70 people vs the United which is about 170 people. It looks close because of the angle and some camera tricks. Landing on parallel runways happens all the time.
They are called Precission radar monitoring approaches and they start doing them when things get super congested. Requires us to listen to another radio so atc can tell us to break-out if someone crosses the no go zone in between the runways.
I've done this (sitting in a passenger seat), it's normal. This video is a bit of an optical illusion, the planes are nowhere near as close as they look.
There are certain airports where it's standard procedure.
My thoughts too. I figured that the FAA would prevent this from happening for any reason except emergencies
Edit: c'mon folks, I'm not asserting that this is an emergency or that this is against regulations. I thought it was, but if this is a normal landing then it's simply a surprise to me that it happens.
Another cool thing to think about is how like, this video of two planes landing can create a bunch on interesting discussions, i mean, just look at all these comments!
I knew it! I thought it to be impossible that planes can fly that close with each other without affecting each other. The air pressure (or whatever) would be affecting the flight of another plane if they are too close with each other.