Aborted landings/Go-Arounds
 

Hey,

Just wondering really how many of you have actually been in a go-around as a passenger on an aircraft.

The 3 I've had are particularly memorable as the aircraft decided to make a nice bank to the right giving us a nice view of the terminal at about 500ft..

I even remember the flight number, OHY419 - Onur Air.. Turkish airline, 3 aborted landings at Humberside (EGNJ).

I was extreamly scared, and so where the crew.. Thats what happens when lack of communication from the flight deck, between crew and passengers happens!

I actually found the airline very poor, and I would class the very little english of the crew a safety hazard.. Couldn't even understand the captain when he came on the PA saying "Sorry, winds are high we are diverting to Manchester"!

However, had I have understood at the time I think everyone would have been a little calmer.. If only he told us it was winds at first? - The cabin crew could have saved the tears.. When you see cabin crew running for sick bags and hearing them cry, it sets the passengers off! Yeah alright, I admit it.. I was crying aswell! - I really did think I was going to die though.

Anyway, hopefully you understand all that!

Going back some years, i was on an aborted landing at LHR on board a 747-400, Captain came over the speaker phone and blamed another aircraft for missing the exit turn on the runway. Nothing really exciting to be honest, but when that TO/GA button gets pressed (i assume) you certainly feel the power of 4 RB211's kick in!:E

Going back even further.... i was on 2 aborted take-offs onboard an Orion 737-200, i can't remember the reason given, nor did i care, because i was off on my happy holidays, and my mummy was holding my hand:} ( i was 6 years old at the time)

Also been on an aborted take-off onboard a Brittannia 737-200 out of Athens, again not really botherd, typical package holiday thing, 90 minutes on a ferry, then 3 hours on a coach, get to the airport, flights running 3hours late. get told by check-in that there aren't any seats left, take 40 minutes to find a rep, then by a miracle they suddenly find 3 seats... From what i can remember, the cabin crew were fantastic, both my parents were asleep, and a cc member, gave me 4 cans of schweppes lemonade and one of those plastic snap-fit models free of charge.

You have not lived until you have experienced a 744 go around from short finals! Better then any theme park ride!!!! :E

Maybe the flight deck was busy ???
 

Do you possibly think the flight deck had a few things to take care of ?? You have to complete the abort checklist, coordinate with ATC, and then set up the landing all over again following the procedure for that. Then throw in the weather, hand-flying and radio communications they had plenty on their hands.

The flight attendants, IMHO failed by not reacting calmly to the events. I have been through plenty of go-arounds, they happen and thank God they do. I'm sure some of them had gone through some of them also. A little overreacting if it really happened as you described.

It takes a few seconds for an announcment just to say there are high winds and we are trying another approach..

Or at very least the CC could have said "The captain has aborted the landing, we will give you more information when we get it" or something like that..

You really had to be on the A/C to realise how scary it was, yeah and when we got to EGCC my dad had an asthmea attack and we had to get an ambulance to the A/C - Which proberbly made it more scary for me..

I have to agree about this.

Some colleagues of mine were travelling with BA Connect Stuttgart -> Birmingham in an Embraer on 18th Jan when we had the big storms.

They had 3 aborted attempts at landing in Birmingham (I witnessed attempt 3 as they were half way down the runway at about 4m and "overshot" - BA's word) before being told by the pilot that they needed to divert to Manchester. They then had 2 attempts at getting down (luckily the second attempt was a good one) and were slightly surprised to find that they were on the ground at East Midlands instead.

During their flight the cabin crew apparently also looked scared and were being sick themselves, the flight ran out of sick bags and the CC stayed in their seats while one passenger was taken quite badly ill (sickness or panic attack) leaving the surrounding passengers to assist.

When I picked them up from East Mids they told me that they were appalled at the lack of information from the flight deck which had left them fearing the worst. By their account they were trying to land for about 2 hours in total and managed it on their 5 attempt and got about 2 messages from the captain. Non of us could actually believe that it was safe to be flying under those circumstances - what happens if you need to land ASAP due to a technical fault on the aircraft or a passenger illness?

I'm a regular, but very nervous, passenger and would have been terrified if I had been on this flight. I always find communication from the front seats to be a big relief - after take off I always watch for the intercom from the flight deck to release the cabin crew as this reassures me that all is OK.

I flew from Stuttgart to Amsterdam on 12th Jan with KLM in a Fokker 100. During the flight, and whilst the captain was giving his mid-point announcement the right hand engine (I was sitting alongside it) cut out totally for around 10 seconds before seemingly restarting - this happened twice about 5-10 minutes apart along with the associated lurch in the plane as the direction was affected, yet the captain told us nothing about it - I was very concerned and yet would have been bery pleased to hear an explanation - either good or bad about what had just happened. I was even more worried when that flight ended with a VERY rough approach and landing into Amsterdam where we were going from no real throttle to what must have been close to max just to keep in line and in the back of my mine were these unexpected engine cuts which if the happended again could have caused a serious problem during the final approach.

From a nervous PAX, my message is I would like as much information as often as possible as this is very comforting. Better to go over the top than not give enough IMHO

I have been cabin crew for the past 9 years and have experienced several go-arounds in my time.

I would just like to comment on a couple of the things which have been posted :-

AdamC - Onur Air is not a UK airline and therefore you can not expect them to have excellent English. The airline I work for is a large UK airline, when we fly to foreign countries we do not always have language speakers from that country onboard. If this is something that concerns you you should book with a UK airline.

According to our ops manual, in a go-around situation the cabin crew will not make any announcements until the captain has. How could the cabin crew say that it was a go-around - they don't know ?

The person who made a comment about it only taking a few seconds to make a PA - have you seen what it's like in the flight deck when they are making a go-around ? They really will make a PA at the first possible time. They will be assessing a number of things, communicating with air traffic etc

Sorry it's a bit of a rant, however it really is something that is quite a frequent occurance and pax really shouldn't worry. Unfortunately though it is one of those occassions when the operation of the aircraft itself has to come before customer service expectations.

Brummy.... Firstly, regardless of how serious or not a situation is, crew are still capable of developing air sickness in rocky weather, has happened me on one or two occasions at times when perhaps it was not appropriate (not that it ever is)!

Secondly, when you felt this engine "cut out" as you say, did you just sit there waiting for an announcement to be made or did you bring it to the attention of the cabin crew. Lets not forget the British Midland Kegworth disaster which perhaps could have been avoided if a passenger had brought something to the attention of the cabin crew!

Given that the above sentence could be interpreted in a variety of ways owing to the apparently random use of punctuation and spelling, I am surprised you feel that you are in a position to criticise others' use of English. Is English your first language?

Yes, you made your point without a trace of irony...:rolleyes:

apaddyinuk

Brummy.... Firstly, regardless of how serious or not a situation is, crew are still capable of developing air sickness in rocky weather, has happened me on one or two occasions at times when perhaps it was not appropriate (not that it ever is)!

Yes, I agree. The point I was hoping to make was that it was such a bad flight that the PAX would have appreciated some calming words from the flight deck. I do think my colleagues were unhappy that an ill passenger that they believed had passed out for a few minutes did not receive any attention from the cc, but I wasn't on that flight to comment with authority.

Secondly, when you felt this engine "cut out" as you say, did you just sit there waiting for an announcement to be made or did you bring it to the attention of the cabin crew. Lets not forget the British Midland Kegworth disaster which perhaps could have been avoided if a passenger had brought something to the attention of the cabin crew!

I must admit that I didn't - but I think everyone on board spotted it as the noise dropped and you heard the engine spin down before spinning back up again, plus the plane changed direction momentarily as it happend (I guess the autopilot corrected it pretty quickly). Certainly the people sitting at the rear of the cabin were looking at each other as it happened and then the cabin crew disappeared behind drawn curtains at the font almost straight away so I guess they spotted it as well.

I don't know whether this is a common thing on a Fokker 100 as I rarely fly on them and I assumed it was noticeable enough for the crew in the font seats to have heard & felt it.

Maybe I should have said something - but the problem is I tend to feel that as a nervous passenger I am making too much of nothing.

Given that the above sentence could be interpreted in a variety of ways owing to the apparently random use of punctuation and spelling, I am surprised you feel that you are in a position to criticise others' use of English. Is English your first language?

Sorry, I made a few mistakes.. Im 15, doesn't it happen to us all?

Im not going to argue about anything I said, my personal opinion is that the CC or flight deck crew should have made an announcment.. Before diverting, especially as the aircraft made a nice bank to the right on approach.

Shortm, I guess what you explained about the CC not making an PA before the captain is what happened onboard our flight, after the captain had said we where diverting the cabin crew said some muffled, PA about keeping calm (Yeah, not all the cabin crew where crying, just all but one or two!)

an apology
 

AdamC

I apologise for the sarcastic tone of my post- lowest form of wit & all that... I hadn't noticed your age & I wouldn't have taken such a condescending approach had I done so. In actual fact, I think it's laudable that you clearly have opinions on such a subject & I applaud you for voicing them on a forum such as this.

Moreover, how unlucky are you to have experienced three go-arounds in 15 years? :)

Best wishes,

Nicodemus31

No problem! :)

Yeah I guess it is rather unlucky! - However, that was back in the days when I didn't have a clue about anything aviation - Had it have been say a few months ago, then I would have proberbly laughed at the fact of 3 go-arounds and a diversion!

Adam.

I was sitting as a passenger in an A320 in Denver when we flew through a nacent microburst. That was an interesting ride - it's always fun to hear the engines spool up and not see the ground go any further away. Those 'Buses do have a hell of a climb rate when they need it. All things considered, I enjoy go-arounds much more when I have some say in how they turn out.

Quite a few. When you've "been there, done that", the go-around is really pretty routine. I can imagine how, if the reason for it is adverse weather, the ride might be pretty uncomfortable - but it would almost certainly have been pretty uncomfortable even without a go-around, just for a shorter period.

The workload on the flight deck during and immediately after a go-around is pretty high. I think that we've had some previous threads here on go-arounds where pilots have explained in some detail all the work they have to do. Making announcements is a distraction from the task of safely managing and flying the aircraft.

I think that there's probably a better case to be made for a standard procedure in which the cabin crew make an announcement. It would have to be pretty anodyne, and wouldn't be able to give a reason - but at least it would be an opportunity to reassure the passengers that a go-around is a perfectly normal and routine thing. For those passengers who want to listen, of course; there are always going to be those who are convinced that they are in mortal danger every moment that they're in the air.

The only time I have experienced a go around was in a Dan Air 748 at Birmingham. As we climbed I looked down and saw a light twin had landed on the cross runway. As I was watching this a female voice from the cockpit apologised and explained the reason. It was only then that many of the business men on board realised we had a lady captain. When the new passengers joined us for the ongoing flight to Newcastle, you could hear them being told that we had a lady driver. I guess that, in those days, it was quite rare.

The most interesting part for me was that the cockpit door came open during the go around and, from well down the back, I could see something of the horizon during the subsequent, tight visual (presumably) circuit. From that position changes in attitude seem greatly exaggerated and it looked more like one of my untidy circuits. However, the excellent landing on the numbers showed it was a good bit of flying.

I am soooo disappointed ... 40 years of paxing through hundreds of sectors, dozens of a/c types and not one single GA. :(

Just where is the justice in that? :mad:

I wanna feel that 744 TOGA and I wannit Now. :p

Just something for all the SLF here reading this that has come to my attention...

If you feel/hear or see something out of the ordinary...DO NOT...i repeat DO NOT keep it to yourself. Grab the attention of one of the cabin crew and simply describe what ever it was to them. Do not assume that the pilots are aware of it because that is not always the case. It could actually be the factor that prevents the pilots shutting down a healthy engine etc etc!

Experienced a handful.
From top of memory:
747 VS into LAX - long silence then explanation about config/conditions not quite right, so TO/GA

A320 Iberia recently into Madrid - long way round: passengers gettting nervous about missing connecting flights - explanation about plane not vacating runway

Around August 95, very short finals to Gaborone (Botswana) on a BA 747. The crew carried out a go-around and and announced something like: 'Sorry, we had to throw that approach away as you noticed, but we'll have you back on the ground very shortly.' as we were climbing out.
Top marks for keeping the pax informed during what must have been a busy time on the flight deck.