Russian "passenger" jet? Yeah, right.....
An dthis all occurs right over the 36,000+ feet deep Puerto Rico Trench? Hmmmmmm.......
Ping
Come on, what are you suggesting? A Russian 737 was playing chicken with a Delta jetliner? And BTW, the Puerto Rico Trench is 28,232 ft at Milwaukee Deep, the lowest point in the Atlantic Ocean, not 36,000 ft plus.
Please adjust your tin foil. The government’s mind rays are leaking through.
60 seconds would still put them a considerable distance apart...
One, or both of the jets was flying at the wrong altitude for the route.
OR ... they were cleared en route to the wrong altitude by an international air traffic controller.
I doubt there was anything malicious here. Negligent and stupid, sure.
It was an air traffic screwup, mostly by San Juan Cerap, which is an FAA facility. 180 miles north of San Juan would be right on the extreme edge of radar coverage, so its likely that nonradar separation procedures were being used. The error was not charged to New York Center which controls the nonradar airpace from about 200 miles north of San Juan all the way north to New England coastal waters. I can probably find out exactly what happened.
Aeroflot?