Mysterious disappearing 146 LCY?
 

Morning all

There I was sitting in the Departure Lounge at LCY on Thursday morning (around 8am), a little bit bleary eyed but enjoying myself having kindly been given an extra 90 mins. to watch the aircraft courtesy of a delayed klmUK flight. I was mildy intrigued to see a Lufthansa 146 (RJxx?) go around at a reasonably low height, he certainly seemed to give the impression he was about to land long so ditched the landing...the strange thing was I sat there for another hour at least and I swear he never appeared again!

Can any LCY ATCOs fill me in on what happened? I'm not suggesting any kind of drama or scandal, I'm just a curious PPL.:)

On Thursday, I think the viz was not very good ( at the moment I believe some a/c need as much as 7 km to land), so I guess it was a standard go-around and diversion.

No drama, no scandal! Runway 28 ILS out of service, (now restored) visual procedures in force. Visibility that morning around 4000m. I suspect the aircraft diverted to Stansted (as is usual), having first held at ALKIN for weather improvement.

I think Thames and City were talking all into accepting a tailwind into runway 10. When one DLH could not guarantee a landing would be successfully accomplished on Rwy 10 first time, the ATCO said he could not offer him an approach, and therefore he diverted to STN. I don't think this was the first one that you saw go-around though, that happened earlier.
Methinks they needed to get some stands emptied and wanted to depart on Rwy 28 for these. Obviously aircraft still landing on 10 makes this a bit trickier.;)

Red 4,

I don't think Thames or City are into, " talking all into accepting a tailwind into runway 10". We would be on very dodgy ground indeed I would suggest. LCY is a VERY wind sensitive operation, with some BAe146 operators unable to accept any tailwind component at all. What we do is give pilots the facts regarding the wind, and let them make the decision.

ATCO 2
Agree about being on dodgy ground if someone was deemed to have pressurised pilot into making an approach, and there was a subsequent incident. Does the LCY airport authority itself have a ban on tailwind landings by jets, or is this purely down to the company concerned?

Red 4,

Use of the opposite end rather than the declared runway-in-use depends on the operations manual of the company concerned. Pilots may be offered the opposite end if requested, subject to not delaying other traffic.