RoyHudd wrote:
UK ATC are issuing far more go-around orders than in previous years, with no comparable increase in traffic. I have experienced a couple of over-cautios GA orders in the last 6 months, at NCL. and MAN. We managed them fine, but were asking ourselves WTF? as we performed the manoeuvres and were actually quite annoyed about the whole things. (Human reactions) Has the defensive safety culture infected British ATC too? It really doesn't improve safety to be told to go-around for reasons that are more legally protective than practical. (This doesn't let the 757 folks off the hook, but it is a relevant part of the Swiss cheese model).
I no longer work in British ATC but did for 16 years and safety was and is still the main priority of controllers world wide. There are times we will let things run for as long as possible and other times you just know from early on that there's going to be a go around. We get no thanks for making a really tight situation work but get a whole lot of paperwork if it doesn't and we have done nothing to mitigate the situation. Those with less experience may not let things run as long as others, hence your perception of over-cautiousness.
Piltdon Man wrote:
Can you tell me how safety is improved by ordering a go-around? Just because a procedure is written down it doesn't mean to say it has value. As someone has written earlier, a dead bird or bunny on the runway killed by the preceding aircraft will be one less for the following aircraft to bump into. Ingestion is just smoke-screening the real issue, backside covering pointless edicts from above. Tell us and let us decide.
As I said earlier, there is some room for discretion and then there is no room for discretion.
If your approach is unstable but you get it back together at 450 feet (assuming you're aiming for 500 feet) should you be allowed the discretion to land? I'm thinking your rules say you have no discretion and you would have to go around. What would the ramifications be of you using your discretion here? Interview with no tea and biscuits?
We all have our rules and most of them are there for perfectly valid (to us) reasons and others seem asinine to us but we still follow them because they are perfectly valid to others: airport operators and their lawyers.
On several occasions I have had a routine, 4 hourly inspection take place and he finds FOD, be it dead birds, rabbits or bits of rubber crack sealant. Yes we've operated for up to 4 hours since it was last checked and nothing happened but the airport sees this as a problem and wants to inspect more often to cover themselves. If I know there to be something on the runway which may cause, however unlikely, an incident, it is in my duty of care to not let you use the runway.