TravelTheWorld66

I was on AA2121 from LGA to BOS on 12/11/15. After a seemingly normal descent, we were less than 1,000 feet from touchdown when the engines of the E190 went into full thrust and we took off back up nearly vertical. We climbed to about 5,000ft when the pilot told us that we were "too close" on the landing, whatever that means.

We circled for about 20 minutes and then the flights attendants started scrambling, telling everyone to shut off all of their electronic devices, not just keeping them in airplane mode. She explained that we had to make an "auto landing" and the pilots needed everything off so that there was no interference with the aircraft's computer systems. The pilot briefly came on the intercom confirming we had to make an auto landing, but didn't explain what it was or why we were doing it.

Come to find out later there was a very low cloud ceiling, and the pilots essentially had zero visibility of the runway until they were basically on top of it. Needless to say it was a rough landing, and everyone was relieved when we touched down.

Anyone else experience this? Is it common?

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...400Z/KLGA/KBOS

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Had this on an ANC-ORD on AS this spring. Yeah was exciting entering a holding pattern over Lake Michigan after the go-around

nachosdelux

fairly common, completely safe. Used frequently (by operational requirement) in poor visibility. most of the time the crew will not even mention it.

FYI the likely reason you went around on the first approach is that you got too close (spacing) to the plane that was landing in front of yours.

coolcoil

Yes, it is fairly common. We did what the crew referred to as a "category 3" approach into DCA a couple of weeks ago. They warned us ahead of time that all electronic devices would have to be completely shut off.

This is not new either. In 1997 I was on a US 767 landing at CLT. I was looking out the window, thinking we were still high in the clouds when our wheels thumped on the runway. The captain announced on the PA, "Folks, if you've never been on a plane that landed itself, now you have."

I suspect that what your pilot meant was that they were too close to the threshold of the runway before they were able to see it using the level of instrumentation employed for that attempt. I'm sure there are others here who know the exact limits for each category type.

As far as the E-175 going "nearly vertical," I'm taking that as hyperbole on your part. An ascent angle of more than 10 degrees is highly unlikely and more than about 15 close to impossible. The E-175 (and just about any airliner on the market today) does not have enough power to transition from approach speed to anything much more.

LaserSailor

If the FAs read FT instead of their training manuals they would have known that cell phones can't affect nav systems.

Often1

It's very common and nothing to worry about. The go round and then auto landing were two separate events.

But, the entire issue about personal electronics is important for the whiners who routinely post on this board about FA's "making up rules" about shutting off electronics. It is well within the Captain's discretion, there is a reason for it and the time when you don't want to find out that your buddy who met a guy in a bar who told him that iPad's don't interfere is a moron is on one of these approaches.

BStrauss3

In fact, pilots are required to make auto-landing approaches a small # of times per certification period to keep proficiency up.

It's perfectly safe, but it's not quite the ride we all hope for... If you've ever asked your seatmate whether you landed or were shot down, it was probably autoland.

Basically, autoland rides the localizer beam down until it meets the runway. It lacks the subtlety most pilots provide of slowing the approach for the last few feet to make a softer landing.

CPRich

From the per-minute Flightaware data, your peak climb angle was about 3.1 degrees.

My current count of go-arounds is at 7. Auto-landings - I'm sure I've had some but the pilot has never announced it.

JDiver

Auto-land and Cat III (including III A and III B) landings in properly equipped and certified aircraft piloted by properly certified cockpit crew at properly ILS instrumented and certified airports have been common since the 1970s. They permit auto landing when visibility minima are as follows: (ILS itself has been around since 1947.)

Category III A
Category III B

You can read more here and here. (I was an ATC / navaids global troubleshooting engineer / tech in the 1960s and a pilot.)

As this is not an issue exclusive to American Airlines, we will move this to TravelBuzz. /JDiver, Moderator

LarryJ

1000' vertically or horizontally?

Two possible reasons for the go-around.

1. The reported weather (visibility) had dropped below the required minimums for the approach.

2. The spacing between you and the aircraft ahead of you was not sufficient to allow the preceding aircraft to clear the runway before your flight reached the runway threshold (the beginning of the runway).

In either case, the go-around is required and is routine.

Go-around are not "near vertical". They are a smooth transition from a normal descending approach to a normal "after-takeoff" climb. In many airplanes, B737, 757, 767 for example, they don't even use full power. I don't know any specifics of the E190.

The flight path typically changes from a ~700 foot-per-minute (fpm) descent to a roughly 2000fpm climb. Pitch attitude would increase from ~2.5 degrees aircraft-nose-up (ANU) to ~15deg ANU. (15 ANU-20 ANU is typical on takeoff) It is probably the change from a descent to a climb that causes many passengers to over-estimate the aggressiveness of the climb.

An autoland is accomplished when the visibility is too low for a pilot to land visually. Not all aircraft can autoland, I didn't previously know that the E190 could, and not all airlines maintain certification for autoland. Some airlines do similarly low approaches without autoland by using a Heads-Up Display (HUD).

The CAT IIIa, IIIb, IIIc nomenclature has been replaced. The approaches are now CAT III fail-active or CAT III fail-passive. The difference is in the details of how the approach is conducted and is dictated by the equipment on the airplane. On a fail-active approach the pilots do not have to see anything prior to landing. On a fail-passive approach the pilots must see the runway prior to landing, typically by 50' above touchdown. By comparison, a "normal" approach (CAT I) would require the pilots to see the runway (or at least the approach lighting system) by 200' above touchdown.

Many airlines will require personal electronic devices (PED) to be turned off completely for a CAT II or CAT III approach as a precaution. While PEDs will not normally interfere with the aircraft's systems interference is still possible, especially if there is an undetected fault in the aircraft's systems. This is not a legal requirement, as it once was, unless the airlines have written it into their procedures. In any case, if the flight crew instructs you to turn off your PEDs then you must do so.

Autolands are not typically rough landings. They are usually quite normal.

Here's a cockpit video of a CAT III fail-active autoland in a B767. The visibility during this approach was 175m (about 600' horizontally). You just barely see a few of the runway touchdown zone lights prior to touchdown. The numbers you hear called out "100, 50, etc." are height above touchdown from the radar altimeter.

celle

Our local, small-town airport does not have auto landing facilities. I wish it did.
Poor visibility closes the airport all too often.

Once, we tried to land when the pilot had occasional glimpses of the runway.

We did 6 attempts to land and 6 go-arounds before diverting to another airport. Having landed safely there, we had a 2-hour bus ride to get back to our home airport.

LtKernelPanic

LarryJ nailed it. It may have seemed near vertical but you were no where close to it. Even Boeing's famous 787 vertical takeoff video the AOA was only about 30 degrees. The rest was some nice cinematography. If you search youtube for "Cat III" you'll find some really cool videos showing it in action. FWIW Delta flight 1889 got pummeled by hail near Denver last August used autoland since they couldn't see out the forward cockpit windows from the hail damage.

gooselee

As someone else said, autoland is somewhat common and pilots will often not even mention it.

Just a couple weeks ago I landed in ATL in dense fog...runway wasn't visible outside my window until literally a second or two before wheels down, but up until that point it just seemed like any other landing.

While we were deplaning, another pax was chatting up the captain in the cockpit doorway, who said the plane had just landed itself, autoland is such a great tool, etc. Zero sense of concern whatsoever, and if there's one person on a plane I'm going to trust, it's the guy/gal at the controls.

LarryJ

AOA (angle-of-attack) and pitch attitude are not the same thing.

While the pitch attitude may have been 30 degrees ANU the AOA was nowhere near 30 degrees as the airplane would have stalled long before reaching that AOA.

AOA is the angle between the aircraft's longitudinal axis and the relative wind (flight path).

The pitch attitude is the angle between the aircraft's longitudinal axis and the horizon.

LtKernelPanic

Thanks for the correction. That's why I shouldn't post when exhausted from working too many hours in retail.