Several years back coming into ATL; plane is just off the runway...I don't know, maybe 100-200 feet...and the captain guns the engines and and takes off to circle back around. He comes on the intercom after we clear the airport and says that a small plane hadn't cleared the runway or had taxied onto the runway...something to that effect.

Anyway, after we circle around and land, the FA comes on the intercom and says, "And we'd like to congratulate Captain So-and-So as today he is retiring and this was his last flight."

I'm thinking he was just doing a "fly by" of the tower ala Tom Cruise in Top Gun. I mean, even if it was against regulations, what are they going to do? Fire him?

Just wondering if anyone else thinks he might have been doing a "fly by" or whether there really was some intereference from another plane.

No. He executed a go-around or a "missed approach." That disrupts the whole air traffic around the airport if that happens! If the runway isn't safe to land, then the pilots have to go around and try again. In your case, another plane didn't clear the runway as expected or happened to cross the runway unexpectedly.

It's normal to run the engines to full throttle as the pilots want to get maximum lift (as in they want to get out of there immediately) as the aircraft speed is so low that it's close to stalling.

I have heard of people doing "intentional go-rounds" for special occasions like this, and it's actually not that much of a problem if it's pre-arranged with ATC.

On this particular occasion... who knows? There would have been a note in the air traffic logs, but they only have to be kept for a limited period so will have long since been destroyed.

I would find it very, very hard to believe that a professional pilot would disrupt the ATC system, and endanger other flights/pilots/passengers by deciding he wanted to do a go-around just for fun. And then lie about it.

No, I don't think so. Go-arounds happen.

On the same note, I was on an AA flight landing in STL a few years ago, and the pilot did the same thing, except the wheels actually touched the runway before he lifted back up. Why on earth would ATC even let a pilot get that close to the runway if it's not safe to land?

The pilot has the ultimate responsibility to decide if it is safe to land whether anyone else thinks it is or not. Another plane landing or taking off before your flight might not have cleared the runway as expeditiously as ATC had expected as one example of what might have happened.

Uncommon, but not altogether unusual....

A similar situation (again AA) in which I was a passenger occurred years ago when DFW was young. An a/c that had already landed out on one of the West Perimeter runways had been held "short" at one of the taxiway crossings South of the terminals, while a/c in the immediate approach pattern landed. My flight was last in line, descending over Grapevine toward 18R. Apparently, there was some confusion and the held a/c started to cross after the flight before the one I was aboard landed. My flight touched down up on the numbers, spooled up the engines, and executed a quick "touch and go" to avoid a possible collision with the taxiing a/c.

My brother was coming into Tucson during monsoon season - violent late summer storms. The winds changed direction quite suddenly and the pilot decided to abort. Unfortunately with the new wind direction he didn't have enough speed to climb before the wheels hit the ground. He still did a touch and go, went up, circled and came back the opposite direction as planned.

Pilots have a lot more to deal with than we do, could be as simple as needing the wind in their face to help slow the plane down, though in this case since the engines were racing it was probably a better choice to continue the planned ascent and reconfigure for landing.

"That's a negative, Ghostrider. the pattern is full"

Many of us have experienced the missed approach, and also the pilot retiring after today's flight. The two don't necessarily coincide.

There are many "near miss" incidents at airports every year including runway incursions. Often the pilot sees something the ATC hadn't noted, such as a plane below being slow clearing the runway, and aborts the landing. Sometimes the captain says that's what happened, other times there's just an announcement that "we're going to go around again."

Oh, I've had some missed approaches...nothing unusual there...just thought it was a coincident that it was the pilot's last flight.

There's a reason "they say" there is no such thing as coincidence. You could be right, guess you'll never know for sure unless you ask the pilot. Did you catch his name?

coincidences happen

last year I was on a promotional A380 flight which had a go-around (see trip report).

I've been on 5 aborted landings (LGAx2, BOS, DCA, MCI). I can say as a passenger, there is nothing fun about it. It adds about 30 minutes to your arrival time and is indeed a safety issue.

I have a friend who is a pilot (private) and I have flown with him a number of times. Each airport has arrival/departure configurations that are hard set based on the winds. This includes not just runway assignments but approach patterns and departure vectoring. If you who fly out of LGA a lot will know that when you take off on runway 13, you vecotor right about 10 degrees and then vector left about 90 degrees there after - it's there to limit proximity to other traffic. Aborted landing also have specific vectors in that are in place for each arrival/departure configuration. Not that complicated for a single runway airport but as soon as you have multiple runways (and crossing ones no less), the permutations get a little ridiculous.

I would highly doubt fly-bys are an accepted practice for retiring pilots - especially at ATL being ridiculously busy. Think of the additional costs as well as most airports having overbooked arrival/departure slots already. If there were any preparations made ahead of time with ATC, you would hear it over the air. If you are really really interested, you can pull the audio for ATL approach/tower and hear the banter between your flight and apporach/tower. When I fly UA, I am glued to ATC (channel 9) for related reasons - like if the pilot is being honest and quick about the updates.

"Wind in their face" is more likely for the purpose of giving additional lift to the wing surfaces than to slow the plane down.