near miss?

What do the experts make of this flight track?
My wife was aboard this flight today and says they were very low about to land when the plane abruptly pulled up very steeply. A cabin announcement was later made about traffic approaching from the runway.

American Airlines (AA) #2470 ? 27-Jun-2015 ? KORD - KLAS ? FlightAware

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAL2470/history/20150627/1505Z/KORD/KLAS/tracklog

 

It's easier to tell the passengers "the aircraft in front of us was still on the runway" than "we were too high and fast and had to go around." The latter sounds bad, but happens all of the time. Vegas has a lot of terrain and ATC has to hold you higher longer which often leads to unstable (high/fast/not configured properly) approaches. It's possible that the aircraft ahead was still on the runway. A near miss was highly unlikely.

 

Could've been anything. Very common. I have to go around last minute somewhat routinely. Sometimes an aircraft pulls onto the runway when you're on short final. Sometimes it's the pilots fault or controllers fault. Not a big deal.

 

The abruptness can startle some people. However I was always instructed that when you abort a landing you don't screw around by leveling off, slowly adding power, and then start a gentle climb. When aborting you put fire to the coals, establish a climb, and gain altitude immediately. Controllers have expectations, based on experience, regarding planes landing and getting off onto a taxi-way. Sometimes a plane will just roll-out longer than expected for whatever reason. If things are busy and another plane was close behind in the queue they get screwed and have to go around for another turn. Not unusual, especially at an airport where there is a wide range of aircraft types, e.g. small piston (think Cessna 172's) mixing it up with business and commercial operations.

 

parsing "near miss"... :=) should it really mean that something was hit or almost avoided... where as, a "near hit" means something actually was avoided.... a "near miss" could mean something was avoided in close proximity as opposed to being missed by a wide margin...

 

Good advice!

 

That once happened to me at ATL. When the throttles were advanced and the nose came up as we were approaching the runway, I knew exactly what had happened, but I don't remember what we were told. We got right back in the pattern and landed about 7 minutes later.

 

Happens more than you would think at LAX.

I just watched an AA 737 have to go around from a very short final because the tail of the previous landing aircraft was judged by the tower to be still overhang the runway from its hold point.

The calmness of the controllers never ceases to amaze me. LAX, On Sunday I watched them clear two southwest flights for takeoff on the same runway (24R) (24L was not in use)with a Korean A380 on short final....the second southwest pilot even said "Really" when told to line up and wait... The moment his company rotated and wheels left the ground tower cleared him for "immediate take off", bet that guy firewalled the throttles quicker than ever...I was waiting for the 380 to have to go around, there cant have been more than 5 seconds between the 737 rotating and the 380 touching down... would love to have seen the faces of the Korean pilots...

Oh and then an F18 took off.... somewhat different departure profile than most stuff leaving LAX

 

IIRC Vegas has a LAHS when landing on the 19's. Maybe someone rolled out the landing a little too far.

And.....Hey Damion!

 

Lots of good answers here. Go-arounds can be caused by any number of things but should never be a problem. The airplane is already flying. All the pilot(s) have to do is relax, stand the throttles up and retract gear and flaps on schedule. Doesn't matter if you're flying a 210, F-18 or 777. Piece of cake.

 

As a pretty frequent business traveler, I can attest to the "startle some people" - but I get it - "get the heck out of the way, and up as quickly as possible" and have explained that to frightened seat-mates. It's often really crappy conditions when it's happened in my experience as well - crazy side winds, thunderstorm, etc. and that just adds to the "fear factor".

I'm not a fan by far - but I ain't died yet

Jedi

 

Thanks for the replies folks, it's good to know it wasn't likely anything to be concerned about. I'll pass it on to the wife.