Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Workload; Time Pressure; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict NMAC; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Procedure; Aircraft
VMC day departure from BFL; assigned a turn to a heading of 180 and climb to 6000 feet with the takeoff clearance off 30 R. Quickly after takeoff we were handed off the BFL departure who verified the heading and altitude assigned by BFL tower. 5 miles south of the airport; climbing out of roughly 2200 feet and 200 knots; I; pilot flying; spotted a small single engine aircraft crossing from left to right (east to west); roughly 1 mile in front of us; and about 700 feet above our current altitude. I quickly made an aggressive and evasive action to stop the roughly 3500 feet per minute climb and descend to an altitude (around 2000 feet) to miss the small aircraft by around 400 feet vertically and 100 feet horizontally. The first officer; non flying pilot; reported the near miss to ATC who responded with; 'traffic 1-3 o'clock; 2400 feet'. The first officer reported him in sight as the near miss and the controller handed us off to Los Angeles center. We continued with the flight to Houston with no further events. My first officer and I agreed that had the evasive action not been taken a mid-air collision would have occurred.We never received an alert of any kind on the TCAS until after we passed the aircraft when we received only a visual advisory on our map on the MFD.I am unsure of anything the flight crew could have done anything differently or any training that could be done to prevent this type of event. Depending on the facilities available to the departure controller and the equipment of the other aircraft; it is possible that the air traffic controller may require additional training to avoid such events. However; without knowing what information is available to him I cannot suggest that he was at fault. Finally; I do not believe the other aircraft was ever in communication with BFL. Had he/she been in communication I believe this event would have been avoided.
On climbout from BFL; an air carrier took evasive action from a near miss at 2;200 feet which ATC did not report until after the event.