Here’s a video that aviation geeks should enjoy…
A United jet’s unusual go around in Zurich
A spotter in Zurich has uploaded a video to YouTube of a 32-year-old United Airlines Boeing 767-300ER going around at Zurich Airport (ZRH). This occurred on May 30, 2024, and involves flight UA52 from Washington (IAD), with the aircraft in question having the registration code N654UA. While go arounds happen all the time, this one is unique.
In the video, the aircraft can be seen trying to land on runway 28, which is the airport’s shortest runway, at just over 8,200 feet in length. According to the user who uploaded the video, there was no crosswind at the time of this go around, but the runway was wet.
You can see the aircraft first touching down just past the touchdown zone markings, so that’s pretty standard. Despite what looks like a pretty smooth landing, the aircraft bounces, and then struggles to stay on the ground.
Eventually the pilots decide to executive a go around, at which point they throttle up the engines and push the nose down, in order to gain speed. The aircraft ended up doing another pattern for the same runway, and landed safely around 15 minutes later.
I’m curious what exactly happened here
This event isn’t at all a big deal — go arounds are standard procedures, though this is definitely one of the more memorable ones I’ve seen.
I can’t help but be curious what exactly happened here. Admittedly part of the challenge is that the angle from which the video is shot sort of exaggerates all the movements of the aircraft. You notice every movement more than if you were at the halfway point of the runway, and to the side. That’s totally fair, since it makes for much more interesting plane spotting videos.
I wonder at what point the jet actually took off again, and successfully executed the go around, since you can’t really tell from this angle. Did the plane only get off the ground with feet to spare, or was there more room than that?
I’m also curious what caused this in the first place. Did the pilots flare too early? Were the spoilers not deployed? Was this just some freak incident?
Bottom line
While all’s well that ends well, there’s some pretty cool footage of a United Boeing 767 performing a go around at Zurich Airport. The jet bounced quite a bit, before the pilots eventually decided to perform a go around. The plane landed successfully with a second attempt, though for aviation geeks, we at least get a fun video out of it.
What do you make of this United go around?
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