LHR Go-arounds 2 Nov
 

Yesterday ,02 Nov around 0715,I was among a group of BA engineers working a B787 in the maintenance area when an American B777 landing in foggy conditions on 27R,seemed to have had a problem and temporarily blocked the runway...this caused the following 4 aircraft to perform go-arounds......nothing unusual to see in a normal day at LHR!.
However,as engineers, we were interested in how each of the flight crews involved handled each go-around and if it would be part of thier companies operating procedures or at pilots discretion?.......The first go-around was by a BA B777,who had obviously been given a late call,as he was just over the peri track bordering the end of 27R...on initiating the climb out he immediately went "clean" with the gear and climbed away.....two subsequent aircraft,a China Southern B787 and Ethiopian A350 initiated thier go-arounds a little further out and went "clean" with the gear well into the climb out.....in amongst these was a Jet Airways? B777,who on his go-around,climbed to approx 3-4000ft,before levelling out and then retracting the gear!
Based on seeing these,could someone be kind enough to give us any insights into how as flight crew,such situations are handled?. We assume that on final approach each of the crews workload would be similar,(unless they had a problem with the a/c),with the "flying pilot" in charge of the landing etc,and it is they that would initiate and handle the "go-around",given the call, with the second pilot doing everything else?. Our assumption is also,that the flight crews would like the aircraft to be "clean" as soon as possible after initiating the climb out? In this respect,we are curious as to why the Jet Airways B777 went clean only after the go-around climb had been completed.....would this have been a flight crew decision or part of thier SOP's??.

As an aside,we know that in asking this question on this forum,we will inevitably bring out the "Heathrow disaster averted"........"shock horror aircraft forgets to land"....."send for the Daily Fail reporter" brigade,so if the more reasonable and sensible of you out there could answer our question in good faith,then we would be most interested to hear from you!

LHR go arounds.
 

My Airline policy on a go around was pilot flying (or Captain) announced Go around, Flaps (retract one stage), Positive climb, Gear up.
Then follow the go around procedure, or ATC commands.
Maybe the Jet Airways 777 crew forgot to retract the gear in the "excitement" of going around.
All the above commands happen in a few seconds.

That would be my guess too.

Watched BA1528 climb out as I was on the way to work yesterday and the gear was still down as it climbed through about 1500 feet and misted off into cloud. Maybe its the new fashion - I will try it. (maybe hot brakes after taxi)

Two points here.

Firstly, Chinooker. The procedure on a 777 is to call "Go-around, Flaps 20". Pilot monitoring (PM) retracts the flaps to 20 and waits for and then calls "Positive Rate" at which point the Pilot flying (PF) calls "Gear Up". The problem is if the PM forgets or misses the "Positive Rate" call then the gear gets left down. I suspect this is what happened to the Jet Airways you saw. It's only when they PF calls for the after takeoff checklist once the flaps are up does it get noticed (the increasing noise is also a clue!)

Secondly, GlenQuagmire. This has been discussed on here before. The usual reason for leaving the gear down after takeoff is because a wheel brake has been deactivated. This is an allowable defect. In a normal gear retraction, the brakes are automatically applied to the main gear wheels so that the wheels have stopped spinning by the time they enter the gear bay. In the case of a deactivated brake, the wheels have to be left down for 2 min after takeoff to allow the wheels to stop spinning.

How come? Surely the PF should be calling for configuration changes at the appropriate time even if the calls are not being made?

The difference could be between a go around and a discontinued approach where a discontinued approach is less aggressive than a go around. ie everything done at a slower pace but generally initiated from further out.

That's the theory but in practice is can get missed. The whole manoeuvre relies on certain actions at certain times and is quite high workload for a short while. If one call gets missed, the chain is broken and the gear gets left down.

Flying fred, I didnt know that, thanks. Different on my aircraft so I wouldnt have thought of that.

The whole purpose of retracting the gear is because you no longer need it and it adds massive amounts of drag!

It was a relatively rare event during my flying career which only routinely occurred during recurrent training/testing. No matter how well a crew brief for a go-around the instruction from ATC will often take you completely by surprise and as with any unexpected manouevre the workload becomes quite high momentarily.

My money would be on PM not calling 'Positive rate', (standard Boeing call) and the PF, busy confirming in his mind the go-around profile, not noticing.

You would be amazed what you see in the simulator when recurrent or training manouevres are practised, the purpose of which is, of course, to give pilots sufficient practice to prevent errors in real life.

I think I know what you are driving at but of course you could be in for a world of hurt if you call for gear up when you haven't had the positive rate call........

Forgive the non-technical intrusion but I wondered if this article maybe of interest to the discussion.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/59747213.cms

wiggy,

I don't agree at all. I think you call for gear up when you have positive rate rather than when you have the call. Its the condition that matters, not the call. None of the calls are conditions for moving anything. They are information that PF is hopefully already aware of and then makes a decision about a configuration change. Its just a good way of making sure both bods know whats going on.

When the pm forgets the "positive rate" call, after a reasonable time I would say "confirm positive rate". And after the usual affirm would call for the gear.

So I agree with the notion that both pf and pm should have the sequence in their minds so when one forgets the other reminds.

I don't know.

Last time I did my LVO stuff in the sim and it was done at ARN my partner didn't give the positive climb call which meant the gear stayed down until after the level off.

It was a lot more controlled than a normal go around is there. Which usually involves snatching the power levers back as soon as the power checked call is given if you start dropping the nose before that to decrease the rate of climb you will bust your flap speeds if you haven't already. Max landing weight its just about doable a more normal end of flight weight and your going up like a fart in a bath on one engine never mind two at max chat.

Gear down its was all very relaxed no potential for flap overspeeds no huge bunt or pitch change at level off.

For those that don't know its a 1500ft level off on the go-around at ARN.

As I said originally, I suspected that's you were perhaps driving at, so fair enough..though as sleeper said I think I might just prompt the pm for an opinion regardless before demanding the gear be moved.

As a slight aside - my last eight sectors with BA (all in the last three months) have resulted in three go-arounds 1 x A320, 1 x A318 and 1 x 747-400 and a diversion.

Wonder what the chances are of that happening?

Surely better to retract the gear late, than to retract it too soon as those Emirates pilots did at Dubai last year.

I don't know how many hundreds of LPC/OPCs that I have conducted in my time. It was not all that unusual to see a crew fly the G/A to the platform height with the gear still extended. I would say that in almost every case it involved the PNF forgetting to make the "positive rate" call and so the PF failed to call for "gear up". When pilots are very busy they can tend to act like one of Pavlov's dogs.

unless your tight for fuel for another go there are worse crimes.

Like busting your flaps limits or having an Alt bust.