I’m pretty sure every frequent flier has had a turbulent flight and most road warriors have had a go-around. The latter is when, at the last minute, the pilot or air traffic controller decides it’s not safe to land because there’s either something on the runway, the wind is too strong, the wheels weren’t down …
I’ve had multiple go-arounds, including at Las Vegas, London Heathrow and in remote places in East Africa and Fiji. The latter two were because there were animals on the field. That’s right … we were landing on fields.
The Las Vegas one was the scariest for me because our wheels touched the ground and then we went back up and the captain didn’t tell us what was going on for what seemed like hours but was just minutes. It’s understandable because their first priority is to make sure the plane is safe so they have more important duties but it was nerve racking nonetheless. It turned out there was a military aircraft on the runway, which they didn’t see until the last minute.
I was reminded of all these occurrences yesterday when I saw the video of a British Airways plane coming very close to crashing while landing at Heathrow Airport due to high winds from Storm Corrie. Fortunately, the pilot was a real pro and able to safely land on the second attempt but it must have been nerve racking for the passengers.
NEAR MISS: A British Airways airplane almost crashed on landing at Heathrow Airport on Monday as high winds from Storm Corrie battered the runway. The pilot was able to safely land on a second attempt. pic.twitter.com/zQLcTz90ek
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 1, 2022
Have you ever had a close experience like this? Leave a comment below.
I had an aborted landing similar to your African story when I was in Kenya on one of the planes that makes short hops picking up people at various safari camps. We were about to land when we suddenly pulled up. The pilot told us there were zebra on the runway. That was more funny rather than scary. But I did experience a more serious incident years ago on a NW flight into Minneapolis. The landing gear had come down and we were at the point where you expect the wheels to make contact with the ground when suddenly we were going back up at an angle that felt almost vertical. We were informed that there was another plane on the runway where we were to land. The man sitting next to me seemed knowledgeable about flying. He said that it took a very skillful pilot to pull out of the landing at the point he did. Fortunately the passengers didn’t know to be frightened ahead of time, but only in retrospect to realize how close we came to a major disaster.