I was on a Delta flight into SAN last week. We were about to land, really close to the ground, when the plane all of a sudden goosed it again, full thrust, and proceeded to take a loop around. Landed 15 minutes later, people were clapping. No explanation was given other than „we‘re going around“ - what was the possible reason for the abandoned attempt? Other plane on the runway? Came in too hot? Thanks

Flight path

It can be a little unnerving, but it's routine for pilots and is something they consistently train for.

There are a variety of things that can cause it to happen - windshear, traffic on the runway, approach didn't end up aligned correctly, etc. It's a ton of work for the pilots, which is why it takes a bit before they make a PA about it. The three times it's happened to me, they've made an announcement later explaining why, but perhaps in this case they were otherwise distracted/focused on setting up for the second approach.

You can go to liveatc (I don't recall if its .net or .com) and listen to the atc and see if you can hear what they mentioned. It may take some work to figure out the time code and frequency they are using if you are not familiar with the website. Someone I knew had a similar experience on another airline recently (and an airline I do not fly for exactly this reason). The FA made an announcement that they aborted the landing due to high winds. Perfectly calm day. I listed to the ATC and it turns out that the pilots had a lot of problems finding the airport. By the time they found the airport, it was too late to line up and they were too high. They weren't even close, and any decent pilot would have made a loop before descending. Control tower even asked/suggested they should go around, but nope, these idiots still attempted the landing and got to 300' before they decided to abort. With SAN it is a very steep approach and a lot of traffic so my guess is either that traffic had not cleared the runway or they had not descended at a fast enough rate.

Unstable approach, object on the runway (animal, debris, plane), ATC direction, several types of aircraft anomalies can all trigger a go-around.

Random coincidence but I fly into John Wayne regularly to visit a plant half way between LA and San Diego but I have only flown into San Diego twice in my life, and had go-arounds both times. That's out of maybe a half dozen total go-around occurrences over however many years I've been taking flights (counting multiple attempts for the same landings in a couple storms as one occurrence each).

Shifting winds on the final approach: https://archive.liveatc.net/ksan/KSA...2022-2300Z.mp3 (15:00)

just for the record, OP, the "plane" didn't "goose" anything; the PILOTS did

Loops are better when performed vertically.

We recently had a go-around in a B6 flight in BOS. Afterwards I asked the Captain and he said it was a plane on the runway that was taking too long to move on, and ATC ordered the go-around. Mrs. Pickles was terrified, and I told her that a go-around was better than the alternative. And even the alternative has its upsides. We'd both go at the same time, and the question of who takes care of whom in old age gets resolved immediately. I then played this song for Mrs. Pickles:

I thought people clapping when landing a US domestic flight was a meme...I don't really fly domestic US that often...can someone confirm???


Maybe these were just extenuating circumstances surely??

Go-around are most often because of traffic or not meeting stabilized approach criteria. SAN presents a couple of challengers.

The glidepath to runway 27 is steeper than normal, 3.50° instead of the normal 3.00°. Doesn't sound like much of a difference but it makes it difficult to slow down while descending on the sleeper glidepath. It isn't hard to get caught too high/fast and unable to catch up in time to meet stabilized approach criteria.

SAN is a busy airport with a single runway in a constrained space. ATC will sequence arrivals with minimal extra separation in order to meet demand and the Tower will send out departures with minimal extra spacing with arrivals. Sometimes it's a bit too close and requires an arrival to go-around instead of landing. The requirement is that the preceding landing aircraft must clear the runway, or the preceding takeoff must be 6,000' down the runway and airborne, before the next arrival crosses the beginning of the runway. If that's not going to be met, the landing aircraft is sent around.

Usually, no. But when you've apparently avoided a certain death, some appreciation for the crew and ATC is in order.

I’ve only encountered clapping in Africa.

That word leapt out at me too... it was almost a letdown to see they meant circuit... lol

I know, but I kinda felt bad for the pilot(s) when people clapped after landing, lol.

I had it happen last year and started this thread that got a lot of responses:

Who's Had an Aborted Landing?

It's quite unnerving when it happens but (apparently) the vast majority of the time it's really nothing to worry about.