Originally Posted by
TrekkerMary
.... We had come through the clouds and were descending at a good clip when suddenly the pilot pulled up very sharply. Many gasp and cries throughout the plane.... [T]he pilot got on the radio and apologized for the sharp maneuver - apparently the fog had rolled in and completely blocked all visability.... The pilot waited ages to announce what was going on - I think he should have done it far sooner. It would have saved a lot of people from freaking out.
Stories about go-arounds often mention the sharp pitch increase and sudden addition of power. Something I've often wondered about airline flying is whether crews are trained to treat every go-around the same, following the same procedure. My guess is yes because in general pilots train to follow standard procedures, but all of my left-seat time is in Cessnas and Pipers, and obviously things are different for the pros.
I got to thinking about this once on a DL flight into ATL, where the pilot warned the passengers in advance that we may have to go around on account of a thunderstorm that might be moving across the field. Sure enough we had to go around, and even though it was 10-15 miles from the field it was flown like it was on short, short final -- i.e. sharp pitch up and rapid increase in power. There was no apparent safety reason to do it that way, so I assumed crews followed the same missed approach procedure whether they were 1/4 mile from the threshold or a lot farther out.