Where do you 'look it up on the Internet'?

Quite a few over the years but one stands out as an interesting case study of the tiny margins of error available to ATC at busy airports.

I was jumpseating on approach into Gatwick a couple years ago and as we were transferred to tower, we were #2 for arrival about 7 miles behind an EZS 319. Meanwhile, there was the usual morning line of EZY 319s waiting to depart.

The leading EZY 319 at the Juliet hold received clearance "after landing traffic line up and wait 08R" with the EZS 319 on short finals. They proceeded to do so as the EZS touched down and rolled out. Unfortunately, the EZS rolled too long and missed his planned taxiway exit. That delayed the takeoff clearance for the departing EZY 319 now sitting stationary over the numbers. You could hear the frustration in the controllers voice as he instructed the EZS to "expedite exit left contact ground 121.8". Meanwhile we are now right at 1000 ft and the EZY 319 hasn't even rolled.

Our captain was on the ball and was already anticipating a go-around by this time. Sure enough, the instruction came from tower a few seconds later and he immediately retracted the gear and applied TOGA power. It was an incredible experience to fly along the runway with the gear retracting at just a few hundred feet and then break off back to rejoin the pattern.

20 minutes later we were back on finals with the same controller and he apologised for the situation. Not his fault though and can't really blame the EZS either. Just one of those cases where the ducks didn't line up at the right time. If the EZS had been 5 knots slower he could have made the turnoff. If we had been 30 seconds behind there would have been enough time for the EZY to roll and rotate before we touched down. None of this could be reasonably forecast when the instructions were given to line us up the way we were but introducing longer spacing would reduce the flow rates too far below capacity to be practical. Just another day at the office for the Gatwick NATS team who are one of the best in the business....

I believe i experience an aborted landing when flying BOM-DXB on EK during mid January 2009. The aircraft, a B777-300ER was descending as per normal and was about 5 - 10 metres above the ground (it was dark, however, i may have that figure slightly wrong) and slowing rapidly when suddenly the engines spooled up, wing flap position changed and we began to rapidly and steeply climb out over dubai.

Ten minutes, as we circled the city, the captain advised us that there was another aircraft on the runway when we were attempting to land. The cabin was suprisingly calm given the violence with which the aircraft returned to the sky and it was only during my 6 hour layover at DXB that the full implications of what could have happened finally hit me, or maybe it was those infuriatingly uncomfortable recliner chairs of Terminal 3 that were driving me insane. *shrugs*

On an Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Santorini in May 2009, just as we were about to land, the plane went abruptly back up in the air. The pilot told us he noticed a flock of birds on the ground.

Just once, a long time ago taking off from ORD in a UA DC10. Takeoff was rejected successfully. Three hours later, after an engine repair, flight was completed successfully.

flying sfo-mry on an emb-120 (at least 15 years ago), low fog and night, and when we emerged from the fog on landing, immediately went back up, pilot comes on and says, looks like we missed it that time, we'll try it one more time, and if we can't land we're going to have to go back to sfo. Circled around and landed.

I've only had one "goround." 2 months ago on an LH 343 coming from FRA to BOS at the end of my 10 day honeymoon in Italy. It was very bumpy but nothing too crazy coming down. Got the whole plane over the runway about 20 feet from the ground when the engines screamed to life and we climbed VERY quickly (pretty empty flight) back to ~5000 ft.

Worst part was the pilot came on and gave a 2 minute explanation in German. Then changed to English and said "We will have to try the landing again in a few minutes." My new bride has a small fear of flying and she managed to sleep through the entire aborted landing. I didn't tell her about it until we safely landed the second time and she asked me why everyone was clapping.

Re: OP. Mine was an aborted landing on Kosrae, one of the stops on Continental's "island hopper." It's not a long runway, so if the 737 (or 727 before that, if memory serves) doesn't hit it right or the pilot doesn't feel totally confident, he might pull up, circle around and try again. It was quite an ear-popper.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

a couple of times... but that was a long time ago...

Flying into EDI once, think it was on KLM from AMS. Came down, very nearly at the runway, when the pilot pulled us back up again. After a moment there was an announcement that the pilot had decided to abort the landing (didn't explain why) and that they'd be trying again shortly. About 10 minutes later, we'd come round for another pass and landed safely.

3 times
 

1. Aborted landing in SFO. Another plane for the parallel runway was too close (or maybe was staggered in such a way as to create turbulence for our plane). Somebody with more knowledge of landing at SFO might have more insight into that.

2. Aborted takeoff in LAS. Passenger started feeling ill and yelled out that she didn't feel well. FAs must have asked the pilot to stop. We were already accelerating down the run way at the time. A doc on the plane went to talk to her and she said that she'd pulled been partying and hadn't slept in her two days in Vegas. After a few min, she was feeling better but the airline dropped her back at the gate. That was the last flight back to LAX (1:30AM departure or so). Wonder if she pulled another all nighter waiting for her next flight?

3. Aborted landing in ORD. United 747. ATC didn't hear our pilot radioing until we were literally over the runway with flaps and gear down. Pilot gunned the engines and we went around.


On both aborted landings, I was surprised at how few passengers even noticed.

One aborted take off, EVA BR67 BKK to LHR.

But a double go-around - BA from Tokyo to LHR. First time the previous plane hadn't cleared the runway, second time a "vehicle" had strayed on the runway.

The BA pilot said that this was the first time it had happened in his career, and he was retiring the following month.

I've had a few aborted landings. 3 on the same flight, which is the better story.

We were traveling DEN -> BOS on a UA 757 and were put into a hold outside of BOS due to a big winter storm that had kicked up. International flights were given priority (according to the pilot, whom I spoke to after landing) and when it was our turn we had the runway in sight but were called off due to snow plows on the runway. On our second attempt the runway was within sight but we were again called off due to a plane not taxiing off the active runway fast enough.

At that point we had exceeded our hold fuel (or whatever the proper term is) and diverted to Bangor, Maine. We sat on the ground there for quite some time before the crew determined that we were not going to make it into BOS that night. I don't really remember the exact reasons, but I seem to recall it had something to do with the FAs going illegal. UA doesn't have a gate, nor crew at Bangor, so we borrowed someone's gate and were not able to get luggage off the plane (although the co-pilot pulled someone's dog off, less it freeze over night!)

So, we spent the night in Bangor and boarded late the next morning. However, we ended up spending quite a bit of time sitting around waiting because just before boarding a small plane skidded off the runway and it took the airport staff a couple of hours to pull it out. We probably should have diverted elsewhere, but the storm wasn't looking like it was going to come that far north and Bangor has a great runway (again, according to the pilots.) But, the storm did follow us up the coast and socked us in.

I have some great pictures of the storm - The airport hotel's pool was not drained of its water and was a solid block of ice. The co-pilot was out inspecting the plane and used a broom to clear the snow out of the engines. The first tug that attempted to push us back couldn't because there was so much snow around the plane (it had not been plowed) so a second, bigger tug was used.

Finally, upon take-off there was some funny chatter between the cockpit and the tower about us overstaying our welcome (coming from the tower) and hoping to never return (from the cockpit.) That also happened to be one of the best take-offs I've ever experienced. I've experienced holding the brakes and spinning up the engines, but this was done to an extreme. I guess the pilot *really* wanted to ensure we got out of there. It was great.

During our approach into BOS it was ordinary but over the last few thousand feet we picked up some wind sheer and the plane started really rocking back and forth. At one point my heart jumped as it looked like the wing was going to dip into the ocean (not really, but man it was really moving!) So, after all of that we ended up doing *another* go-round. The plane ahead of us didn't report anything and neither did the plane after us in terms of cross-wind. It was like our flight was cursed.

Upon our 4th landing attempt we made it in to much applause from the cabin. The upside of all of this was the amount of time we spent on the ground. In Bangor specifically, the pilots opened up the cockpit and my buddy and I got to spend an hour or so asking him about flying, the 757, etc. I've never had more confidence in the pilots that fly these big planes than after talking with that co-pilot.

As we deplaned in BOS UA reps were there handing out $100 certificates!

Wow. Anybody have four aborted landings on one flight or is three the record?

Just had one so far. Aborted landing on UA flying NRT-SFO on a 777 in the beginning of July this year. I couldn't see what was going on since my seat mate had the shade down, but it was a nice day outside so it must have been the winds.