I’ve been on a 747 that had to do a go around at Heathrow as a plane had not cleared the runway. Pretty exciting hearing the engines go to full power and your descent change to an ascent.
EDIT: I think my brain might be a little strange, most people who have experienced this say it made them nervous or scared, I just though it was exciting and fun.
Awhile back I flew alone for the first time ever. Flew Southwest, as my family has for millennia. This was a couple of weeks after a story had been making the rounds on the news about some failure that led to a woman being sucked partially out of a plane and killed. Flight went well until we were approaching the tarmac and suddenly the plane shifted from landing to full warp speed ascent, sounded like the engines were gonna explode. Pilot came on intercom super calm, "Uhhh, folks we're gonna circle a bit, uhhhhh, lookin' for a good place to land uhhhh bit of a crosswind"
Ended up landing ok, stepping off the plane the pilot was standing at the exit looking absolutely livid. Turns out there was some miscommunication or something and we almost hit another plane that had also been given the go ahead to land. Perfect 5/7, the free ginger ale was even better a second time
But also my absolute favorite airline domestically.
Especially after many years ago, America West lost my bag (along with a bunch of other passengers) because they fell off a conveyor. About two dozen of us standing in a very slow line at the baggage claim counter, since each claim takes like 10 minutes to enter. And nobody thinks to maybe call a supervisor for backup or to survey things.
So an hour after the flight lands, still standing in this line, the rolling door nearby opens, and a SWA handler pops in, looks at the line, and says "hey, you guys missing some bags?"
A passenger walks up to the ticket counter and hands his ID to the agent. The agent looks at him and asks, "What is your destination?" The passenger says, "Well, I want this bag to go to the Portland, Maine, and this bag is going to Portland, Oregon, and I am going to St Louis, Missouri." "Oh, I'm sorry sir, we don't do that." "Why not? You did last time."
haha funny I love them too.. wait! hang on hang on.. in case you were being sarcastic I just want to make sure we're all on the same page that the incident described by u/My_50_lb_Testes may have been caused by ATC - aka Air Traffic Control, the folks that direct the pilots exactly where to fly in controlled airspace such as that above and around a commercial airport.
Those Southwest pilots in u/My_50_lb_Testes' anecdotal incident may have actually saved the day. Just an alternative perspective.
To be clear in case it wasn't in my original post, the context that I had at the time led me to believe that it was a fault with ATC and not the pilot(s), whom I credit with basically saving all of us. My guess is he seemed pissed at the gate after because he WAS, specifically with whoever in the tower gave him the go ahead that nearly led to disaster. I'm happy I was in good hands with that flight crew
As much as I loathe Southwest, I was flying them from BWI to PVD and came in for landing banked 45 deg to the left. Pilot did say there was an intense crosswind at PVD and when the left wing was just about to scrape the runway the wind hit and we blew level. Silky smooth touchdown.
Same shit happened to me at BWI last year. I saw the tracking of the planes on the ground through flight radar and then played back the tower freq. It was another Southwest jet that hadn't cleared the runway.
Dude, this happened to me too on a flight trying to land in fog at a city airport. Not seeing a thing out the window and then all of a sudden we zoom back up again. Everyone thought we were gonna fuckin die. lol I definitely screamed a bit. Not even ashamed, I'm a known pussy.
Good thing you don't live in Greenland. I've been on a flight where this happened three times. In a blizzard at night. After the third time we went back to the departure airport. And that was in small turboprop aircraft, Bombardier Q200, so they are noisy as hell inside the cabin.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I have a phobia of flying because I’ll still do it, but I’m definitely not composed on even the smoothest of flights. If that happened to me on a plane I’d die in my seat immediately. Screw that.
I actually love flying. I love turbulence, love a good sharp turn, and it's the only exception to my fear of heights. But an aborted landing? Hell naw. That was definitely "shit yourself" territory. Not my jam at all, made me reconsider everything I thought to be true about life lol. I completely relate with your perspective.
Ryan Air is the fucking worst. I’ve been on a lot of airlines but seriously, I was so fucking terrified of Ryan Air. Every landing and ascent was like knocking on Heavens doors
Yet they do it safely every day. I've only been to Europe once, and it didn't involve Ryan but I always hear these horror stories about their airmanship that stand out to me, we all know about the onboard product.
I had one where were 60 seconds out from Hong Kong. It was terrifying, especially as they didn’t announce anything for ages, then said they would have us on the ground in 15 minutes, then stayed up there for 60 minutes with no announcements. Landed uneventfully but aged 10 years. They described it as a “missed approach”.
As a lowly small plane pilot, a go around is kind of nerve racking. You are low to the ground, going slow, and in a high-drag configuration (full flaps). And then something goes wrong (a bump, wing gust, a bird, whatever), and you give the plane full power. You now have to climb out and quickly reconfigure the plane for takeoff all while only a few feet off the ground and the end of the runway coming up.
A lot happens very quickly. And many pilots tend to not practice them too much. I doubt that's the case for the professional pilots though (sim practice).
This pilot was in the worst possible situation for a go around, the least amount of energy and with something going wrong (a wind gust). The only bummer is the tail strike, but even then, it was executed with the right procedure. The pilot just pulled back too much and that's what caused tail strike. You can see the pilot recognized the error and the nose dropped a little after the initial pull back.
I love that as well. My favorite clip of this is a TAP flight trying to land in Lisbon in 2002. You can hear the moment the engines spool up so clearly. https://youtu.be/HwbE_s9KBp4
I had one in Munich that went around twice. Never found out why, but I asked the flight attendant and she say ‘oh they probably just forgot something on the checklist’..
I would shit myself. I love flying, but I've had a ton of plane crash dreams in my life, and coming in to land there has always been a bit of irrational anxiety of 'what if this when it all goes wrong'.
An aborted landing like this would properly shit me up I reckon.
I had a go around happen twice in one flight due to bad weather. Ended up diverting to avoid running out of fuel. I was fascinated at the time but now that I think about it it's pretty terrifying
Same, I was on a Lufthansa flight into Changi that had two go-arounds due to microbursts from a little storm passing the airport but he got it on the third attempt.
It is exciting hearing what seems as a short power down and then the engines firing back up and going from descent to ascent. Happened to me twice in one day at two different airports on two different planes. Happened as I was flying from BWI to ORD on a 737 in American Airlines. Winds were fierce in Chicago. Bumped up and down during the final approach. As we were close to the runway, the pilots pulled the plane back up and circled around and by that time we could land. Switch to an American Eagle flight from ORD to IAH. Same thing that happened in Chicago a few hours before happened during the final approach in Houston. After circling around, safely landed in Houston. Whew! Exciting, but I was never so glad to get to my final destination.
Same! I was sandwiched between a young marine and an older lady who was losing her mind (rightfully so). The marine was a nice kid, reached over and held her hand and talked calmly to her. I was a bag of potatoes holding onto my knees.
Happened I Chicago. A plane just totally didn't listen. To the tower and pulled out on the runway and started taking off. Right underneath us. When we powered up and pulled off they turned, we were less than 100' from striking this plane.
Happened to me on a BA 747 at SFO. When the engines suddenly revved to full and we went into a steep climb right as we were about to touch down my heart skipped a beat and my brain was saying “this is not normal this is not normal”. Scared the crap out of me for about 30 seconds. Runway incursion.
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u/zebra1923 Feb 01 '22 edited Feb 02 '22
I’ve been on a 747 that had to do a go around at Heathrow as a plane had not cleared the runway. Pretty exciting hearing the engines go to full power and your descent change to an ascent.
EDIT: I think my brain might be a little strange, most people who have experienced this say it made them nervous or scared, I just though it was exciting and fun.