Thomson 767 GA at Gatwick today?
 

While sitting in the garden of my office around 13.00, I noticed a Thomson 767 inbound from Malaga in an unusual place near Gatwick. Quick check on FR24 showed it appeard to have done a missed approach. As these are relatively unusual I just wondered if anyone knew what the reason was?

I expect Gatwick has upwards of half a dozen missed approaches a week - it is a symptom of squeezing the traffic so tight that there is only a matter of seconds between a scenario working and not. Sometimes for various reasons the runway is not available to land and someone has to go around. I don't suppose anyone who knows is going to tell you why a particular Thomson went around, but the odds are in no particular order:

• Runway closed
• Pilot forgot to do something he should have
• Pilot did something he shouldn't have
• Previous lander slow to vacate with something already lined up on the runway
• Controller tried to squeeze off another departure and ran out of time
• Arriving aircraft did not comply with speed control and ran out of time
• Previous pilot flew ever so slowly and eroded the gap without the controllers doing anything about it
• Etc.

512 in 2014, so around 10 a week, roughly 1 in every 250 arrivals.

Right, missed approaches are far from unusual.

Practicing for when DFS take over ATC.