EI499 Faro - Dublin Thursday 31st July 2008 - GO-AROUND

Crumble

Hey,

Coming home from Portugal last night... on final approach looked like less than a 20 secs to wheels down.. suddenly there was a massive increase in thrust and the plane began to climb sharply.

Needless to say there was some distress among fellow passengers... It seemed like forever before the 2nd officer announced that the pilot had aborted the landing due to possible traffic on the runway.

Apparently, according to said 2nd officer, ATC had informed them that they were unable to confirm the location of a single works vehicle from the current construction work.

So does this sort of thing happen often in Dublin ?

I believe from doing a bit of googling it is refered to in the airline trade as doing a go-around, it is quite frequent at busy airports.

Could have done without the experience!!!!

Steyr

Totally normal, Go-arounds happen at all airports be they small medium and massive, when i was at Heathrow we witnessed many go-arounds, some are due to Aircraft on the runway etc sometimes its bad weather/wind if the crew are not happy the first time they simply "go-around".:)

OPENROAD

I'm sure it happens often, happened to me a couple of times going into Heathrow, other aircraft still on the runway.

sdanseo

As said, completely normal.

ch252

makes the flight a bit less boring!:p
but seriously, they happen all the time! In bad weather they may go-around with a view to diverting but other than that they just give landing another go

skybus

Coming home from Portugal last night... on final approach looked like less than a 20 secs to wheels down.. suddenly there was a massive increase in thrust and the plane began to climb sharply.

Needless to say there was some distress among fellow passengers... It seemed like forever before the 2nd officer announced that the pilot had aborted the landing due to possible traffic on the runway.

Apparently, according to said 2nd officer, ATC had informed them that they were unable to confirm the location of a single works vehicle from the current construction work.

So does this sort of thing happen often in Dublin ?

I believe from doing a bit of googling it is refered to in the airline trade as doing a go-around, it is quite frequent at busy airports.

Aer Lingus don't employ 2nd officers, but i'm just being pedantic. Go Arounds are common in all busy airfields in the world. One of the most common places I experience them is in Heathrow. 4 miles or less spacing between landing aircraft can leave things tight if the aircraft ahead is slow to vacate the runway with you coming in behind at 140kts. As regards Dublin there is alot of building work going on at the moment and alot of construction vehicles are moving around. It sounds like one of these were unsure of their position so for safety reasons no aircraft could land until it was found.

Out of interest there was a crash sometime last year in one of the eastern european airports for this very reason. A construction vehicle managed to get lost, wandered onto the active runway during foggy conditions and a departing Boeing 737 during it's take off roll crashed into it with visibility at only about 200 metres. And it was all caught on camera from a passenger filming the take off in the rear cabin. I'm sure a google search would throw up the relevant clip. Edited as I have found clip here CRASH


You mention it seemed forever before an announcement came from the flight deck. Well to be quite honest it's the very least of the priorites until the aircraft has climbed back up to a suitable altitude, flaps and landing gear retracted and all relevant checklists are complete. It's no different to procedures adopted during a normal take off. You certainly won't be making announcement during this period. A go around or missed approach as it is known is no different to a normal take off. The climb out angle of the aircraft is no more than a normal take off and the power setting on the engines is only slightly more than that for a normal take off. It probably sounds loud due to the fact that your ears would have been accustomed to the lower noise from the lower thrust setting of the engines for landing.

The only danger in a go around for me is that I get home later, for the passengers the additional cost of their expensive airport carparking fee and for the company a few hundred extra euros for the fuel burn.

I guess for a nervous flyer it can seem a bit unusual but it poses no additional danger to the flight.
I hope this helps in some way.

*Kol*

It happens a good bit with Aer Arann going into Sligo because the runway is so short. If they are not lined up correctly they go around and give it another shot.

I experienced the opposite where we were going to do a go around during a test flight an we struck a bird on approach and had to land!

ian_m

I've seen a few in Dublin. Precautionary.

Tenger

Crumble wrote: »

Needless to say there was some distress among fellow passengers...

So does this sort of thing happen often in Dublin ?

Could have done without the experience!!!!

Go arounds are not really 'normal' but are definitely 'routine'. Out of 370+ flights in the past 12 months I have had 3 go-arounds and 1 touch and go.

I can understand the distress they cause to inexperienced flyers,the increased engine noise and sometimes being pushed back into your seat can be a shock when you are nearly at your destination and perhaps mentally already leaving the airport.

The 10 minutes before landing or after take-off are critical periods in the cockpit, hence the lack of announcements from the pilots.

Personally I love them as it breaks the routine.

Steyr

Bramble your making me very jealous +370 flights aarrgghhh!!!:)

Terrontress

I was on a flight from DUB to STN last year which had an aborted take-off and a go-around at the other end. The aborted take-off was quite scary as the plane was thrusting at take-off noise for 10 seconds or so then the engine cut off. It took 30 nervous seconds or so for the captain to come on and explain, during which time I was confirming where I believed the emergency exit to be. When we finally took off, we left from the spot on the runway we had come to a halt. For the go-around it was a really cool sensation of switching from downwards momentum to upwards thrust in an arc.

Tenger

Terrontress wrote: »

........ The aborted take-off was quite scary as the plane was thrusting at take-off noise for 10 seconds or so then the engine cut off. It took 30 nervous seconds or so for the captain to come on and explain, during which time I was confirming where I believed the emergency exit to be................... For the go-around it was a really cool sensation of switching from downwards momentum to upwards thrust in an arc.

To be all serious, good idea to locate the exits when you have a bit of warning. To be all boyish, the go-around sensation is a bit funfair like, i love it....

Davidth88

Only had it once in SFO.......

Danno

Why oh why do I red threads like this 1 week from my flight?

Biro

Danno wrote: »

Why oh why do I red threads like this 1 week from my flight?

Threads like this should make you feel more at ease! When something as described above happens, you can calmly look around at petrofied passengers and claim "calm down people, it's only a go-around".