Four flights - two Go-Arounds

You haven't lived until you've heard whoop whoop as the bottom drops out of a small regional jet about to touch down here...

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Well, maybe you have. I don't scare easily on planes, but that was definitely a pucker-worthy moment.

 

Nothing wrong with a go around, much better than the alternative.

ATC recordings can be found on the liveATC website. Note that these are not official recordings or anything though.

 

Affirmative, I will take 100 go-arounds over one running off the end of the runway.

 

Absolutely.
My good friend, Jack L., was an old number one pilot for a major airline. He told me about a possible go around incident in a stretched DC-8 series west bound for SFO. He asked the FE how much fuel they would have when they reached SFO. The answer was 13k lbs. He elected to go to a nearer alternate because if he shot a missed , he wouldn't have enough fuel for a go around. So, if you might not be able to execute a go around, have an alternate in your pocket. I flew with him in the little stuff and I recall him saying that ,"You can always make a go around if you screw up an approach."

 

Bob- I have been with several pilots who mumbled they were not happy with the approach to a full stop. I just told them to go around and do not worry about it. Never any recriminations and the SOF (supervisor of flying) always agreed with the decision. Next approaches usually nailed the parameters.

 

Sounds like the 2nd one was also a case of "we got too close to the airplane in front of us". It was likely a plane that just landed and the controllers thought they would exit the runway before your plane got there. Also would not be surprised that if you listened to the tapes the controllers were telling that aircraft to expedite their exit. Well, the plane on the runway has the right of way and it is up to the pilot to ensure they can safely exit the runway. Maybe they missed an intersection and had to roll on to the next. Kind of hard to speed back up to try and exit quickly. I've been on both sides, i.e. being told to exit quickly and having to go-around because of ground traffic. It happens.

 

It's funny, in ATC go-arounds are so routine that it's basically a non-event (well, except when it's an A340-3 and they end up doing a prolonged touch-and-go). As a passenger it's rather alarming.
But yes, definitely best to go around if there's any doubt as to the spacing, runway sterilisation or approach stability.
Just yesterday I had to pull a bizjet at 8nm final because they came to my frequency 0.2nm inside the wake envelope of a b777 that was over the numbers. They ended up climbing back to 3k ft and stayed there for 10 miles. Poor pilots sounded very sad.

 

Lol, A343, if not for the curvature of the earth………..