There has been quite a bit of weather in the UK over the past few days, and it seems like that has been leading to quite a few airplane go arounds.
Check out this YouTube video of Air France 1068, an Airbus A320, performing three go arounds while trying to land in Manchester on Tuesday:
After making a third go around they decided to divert to London Gatwick, where they safely landed on the first try.
Go arounds aren’t really unusual. I’ve had a handful of them over the years, and if anything they’re kind of fun, because they show you just how powerful these planes are.
That being said, I’d say that three go arounds are unusual. Of course going around is the safe thing to do, though at the same time you’ve gotta wonder just how much in fuel reserves they have left after three go arounds and a diversion.
He could have landed on the third try the cross winds weren't that bad. Should have tried to land I think.
That looked pretty rough.
@ Sean M -- are there some sort of a pre-defined cap on go-arounds before you need to divert or is it all determined on case by case basis?
I flew into Manchester from LHR on Tuesday evening and it was one of the roughest landings I've experienced. I was surprised we didn't bounce as it was a very steep drop to the runway at the end of the landing.
No pilot will commence an approach (which could lead to a go-around) unless he has adequate fuel to go-around and then proceed to his alternate. If he does not have that amount of fuel for whatever reason, he will declare a fuel emergency.
With weather like this forecast in the UK, the fuel load will almost certainly have been only MLW limited. On a short sector from France, he could probably have done a couple more before he had to worry about anything.
@lucky - Unrelated to this, but I've got an email from Barclay stating that the US Airways card will keep awarding 10,000 miles on your anniversary in the form of AAdvantage miles starting in 2015. Not sure if you knew about this :)
Wow - that doesn't look fun, even with the superbad camera work in the video.
Can the autopilot land in these high wind situations or is it manual control only?