Originally Posted by
jiejie
Scary. Yes this is dangerous. You were lucky that the pilot was able to get enough power (barely) to get up again--usually once a plane is just above the tarmac prior to touchdown, it's committed and too late to power up again and execute successful go-around. Possibly he got crosswinded or was experiencing microburst at the critical moment. Possibly he was coming in too fast and realized it at the last minute. Count your blessings and hug your kids tighter tonight.
Sometimes the forums of pprune.org will have mention of these sorts of non-casualty incidents (as well as actual crashes), but it may take several days to come up (or not).
This is a go-around. This maneuver is taught every student pilot from the time they start making their own landings. Students and airline pilots are taught to go around before the airplane is on the runway, after it makes contact with the runway, or if something just doesn't seem right. Airline pilots practice this maneuver in the simulator at each 6 month recurrency training session. The pilot realized the landing was not a good one, rejected the landing and did exactly what he was trained to do. The aircraft had more than barely enough power, it was light due to the fuel burn from the take off airport, it had sufficient airspeed since it was in the air and the pilot kept the airplane level until he had climb speed/power/configuration.
Airplanes are not committed to land just above the tarmac. Unless they are out of fuel.