johnsmith

flying DCA to EWR

curious if anyone has insight into why we'd take a flight path directly up the Hudson (including a low flyover of the Verrazano) and then a left turn that took us perpendicular over the runways and tower of newark before going south down to metropark (over 287). We then made a u-turn and came back up a much more normal flight path and landed at newark.

pilots made no announcement and didn't open the cockpit door when we got off the plane, so no ability to ask.

assume maybe some mechanical issue that the tower wanted to look at?

764toHI

Arrival spacing? Maybe another inbound aircraft(s) received priority landing clearance.

TomMM

Looks like a standard left hand traffic pattern:

clubord

LarryJ

Looks like a visual approach to Rwy 29, a go-around, then back around to Rwy 4.

You can pull up the audio from Listen to Live ATC (Air Traffic Control) Communications | LiveATC.net

docbert

Go-around, instructed by ATC when they were no more than few hundred feet off the ground. No reason given for the go-around.

Recording is at http://archive-server.liveatc.net/ke...2018-2000Z.mp3 starting just after 21 minutes in, but it's hardly worth the effort - literally nothing said other than "Acey 4402 Go Around" from ATC, and then a acknowledgement from the crew, then a short while later re-route instructions.

johnsmith

yup--listened to it. something about a challenger jet and then the go-around. Not sure if the MUGSY approach archive would have more info on why we took that routing?

Definitely not a normal approach and a go-around for something like an aircraft on the runway. We came towards newark perpendicular to the runway and flew directly over the terminal buildings (no chance of landing). It wasn't quite Top Gun buzzing the tower, but from the flightaware data, it looks like we came over the Verrazano and the airport at about 750 feet

Whats strange is we went pretty far east of the typical route up towards newark starting as we got about 50 miles south of NYC - I can't remember being on a plane that went up the Hudson and came at newark at that angle

here is a flight path for 4402 with a south to north landing a few days ago--very different routing

(4402 from dec 13)

docbert

According to the track on flightradar24 you were directly over the runway.

That flight has flown almost exactly the same track twice in the past week.

johnsmith

not trying to be argumentative here, but I've flown in and out of newark for nearly 20 years (190 segments on UA this year) and I've never flown from an approach over the hudson back to EWR. That routing is fairly common going to LGA, but to make a hard left from the Hudson to Newark is something I can't remember doing on a UA flight. there is a runway east/west that I've used for takeoffs (runway 29) but we weren't over that when we came in for the first approach--we were directly over terminal B and then the tower.

From clubord and LarryJ's note, I wonder if the pilot was supposed to come in with a visual on 29 and missed something? Still doesn't make sense why we were over the Hudson coming in

when we came back up the second time, it was a very normal approach and landing on 4.

clubord

johnsmith

cool--learned something new today. magic of flyertalk...

a friend, who's a pilot, sent me some info on the landing as well. said there was a fedex plane that was in the way, which is why we made the hard bank left away from runway 29. thats why it felt like we went over terminal B and the tower, but it was actually after we aborted halfway over runway 29

docbert

That's exactly what the flightradar24 track I mentioned above shows. You were perfectly lined up over the start of the runway, before turning away to the left after the go-around call.

The left hand turn was because, as shown on the chart clubord included above, the missed approach for that landing is "a Climbing left turn" which is exactly what they did. Whilst the go-around might have been due to a Fedex plane, the actions after they got the call from ATC were dictated by the standard procedures for that approach.

EWR764

Unusual, yes, but as noted that sounds exactly like the published missed approach procedure, and exactly what's supposed to happen when adequate separation is lost between arriving traffic.