Odd approach to Nice on Saturday
A good friend and his wife were on BA348 (an A319) from LHR to Nice on Saturday evening and had a rather odd arrival. They are frequent travellers to Nice, so are in a good position to know that this flight was unusual. I wonder if anyone may be able to shed any light on what happened?
The flight seemed normal until very near Nice, at a late stage of the approach (with the cabin crew seated and belted), although my friend does not believe the flaps were extended and did not hear the gear being lowered. He said the power was suddenly increased when the crew presumably carried out a missed approach, and the aircraft climbed at a high power setting for a couple of minutes. The odd thing is they seemed to be flying more or less straight for the following five minutes or so. An announcement was made that the landing was a "no go" as they "couldn't see the airport" and an attempt to land would be made in the opposite direction.
Eventually, after hardly any banking of the aircraft they descended again (with the coast visible on the port side), the gear was heard to lower, and they landed, but seemed to use the thrust reversers for a long time accompanied by extremely heavy braking. There was a final announcement from the cockpit after landing with clearly discernible tension in the voice saying "I'm glad we made it eventually". My friend commented that some of the cabin crew appeared very shaken. Also, when they disembarked, it was very obviously good weather with clear visibility.
I checked the approach plates for LFMN and the METAR. It seems the wind was 090 at 6 knots. Assuming the initial approach was to runway 22, the procedure for a missed approach appears to be a climb to 3000' with a left turn onto 115 degrees. It seems strange that they felt the aircraft turn very little, especially as I would have thought there would be a couple more significant turns onto a final approach for runway 04.
Could there have been a flap problem which resulted in a higher landing speed, hence the very heavy braking?
Any comments appreciated, to help satisfy my friend's (and my) curiosity!