American Airlines Virtual

Actually, with RVSM rules he could have been just 1000 ft. below

I'm just sayin' it's possible. How do you know he was also heading east? He could have made a wrong turn at Albuquerque!

Or they could have requested a "wrong way" altitude. We do it all the time when the bumps get bad trying to find a smooth ride. If ATC doesn't have conflicts they typically approve it.

But even 2000ft looks really close when you're airborne Looking at that pic it looks like 2000ft to me. At a 1000ft you would see faces in the windows

Cheers