Louis Ibah
An Ethiopian Airline flight (ET 901/29 MAY) which departed from Addis Ababa on its way to Lagos on May 29, 2019 suddenly aborted it’s landing at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos after the pilot had made a full descend onto the runway and passengers and cabin crew had been informed via the public address system “to prepare for landing.”
News that about 392 passengers including a former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, were on-board the Boeing 777 aircraft, proved enough reason to throw the country into panic mode.
In aviation, the aborted landing of an aircraft that is on final approach to the runway is often referred to as ‘a go-round’ and it can either be initiated by the Pilot in Command of the aircraft or requested by Air Traffic Control at the Control Tower. Reasons for an aborted flight varies from an unstabilized approach by the pilot to a sudden incursion or an obstruction on the runway.
For the Ethiopian Airline incident in Lagos, the General Manager of the airline in Nigeria, Ms. Firihiewot Mekonnen, said the go-round became inevitable given that the aircraft had encountered bad weather at the Lagos airport that impaired visibility leading to a miss-approach of the runway by the pilot.
The sudden go-round manoeuvring of the aircraft by the pilot at the MMIA runway had ignited a panic mode in the country by those who saw it as a ‘near-crash’ and the passengers as “having escaped death”, but for aviators (industry professionals including pilots, regulators, air traffic controllers, and airport managers) the incident was simply a “normal safety procedure.”
“The aircraft encountered bad weather during landing and pilots are encouraged according to safety standard procedure to make a go-around the airport for better and smooth landing,” Ms. Firihiewot Mekonnen said.
“And on a second attempt, the aircraft made a safe and normal landing. However; some media incorrectly reported this standard safety precautionary go-around (as a near-crash),” she added.
Mekonnen’s position was corroborated by the Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Capt. Hamisu Yadudu who lamented the ignorance of many commentators on the incident and explained that the decision of the pilot to abort the first landing attempt at the MMIA Lagos was the global industry standard and that there was nothing tragic or abnormal about it.
“Pilots are tutored on a go-around in the course of their training, and it was not an abnormal situation for the Ethiopian Airline pilot. I am surprise with the controversies and the news generated in the media by the action of the pilot,” said Yadudu, who is also an aircraft pilot.
“A go-around is a normal procedure, and it is not an abnormal situation,” he added.
Why abort landing
As a pilot brings down an aircraft from an high flying altitude in readiness to land at a runway, there is what is called a ‘decision altitude’ or a ‘decision height’ as he approached a runway.
When pilots reach this decision point, they need to be able to see the runway clearly or its associated lights in order to continue the approach, if not, then they must prepare to ascend again and perform a go-around. This decision point is so important that on all aircraft a computer system is fitted in to announce it out loud in the cockpit for the pilot to hear. If the pilot is okay, he makes a final landing.
But it also happens at times at airports across the world, that the pilot is not comfortable and decides to abort the landing. It could be as a result of an instruction by Air Traffic Controllers or by the pilot. In this case, the procedure for a go around, is for the pilot to apply full power to the engine(s), adopts an appropriate climb attitude and airspeed, raise the landing gear when the airplane is positively climbing, retracts the flaps as necessary, follow the instructions of the control tower, and typically climb into the air for another circuit before attempting to land the second time.
Bad weather upon descent into an airport is one of the key reasons why pilots abort landing and go-round to re-land on the runway on the second attempt.
Scott Bateman, a pilot writing for Aeronews, said go-round is actually a common manoeuvre pilots make when a plane is destabilised by a wind gust.
He explained that most approaches start a long way from the airfield. The pilots will get the weather report and assess the likely ‘threats’ and take a decision to land or abort.
The pilot said that all airlines have what is called “stabilised approach criteria,” which are mandated parameters that must be maintained when landing a plane. If the pilots can’t assure the stabilised approach criteria, they must find a safe manoeuvre that will allow them to do so, hence a go-around approach.
Bateman said that “a go-around shows that prudent decisions were made to ensure the safety of the aircraft, customers, and crew by professionals doing theirjob.”
“This is an entirely safe and practiced manoeuvre. There is no point in continuing to land if you haven’t touched down in the correct place. To do so would be unwise and it’s safer to go around. A go-around, or aborted landing, is not inherently an incident, but a relatively common procedure,” he added.
In Nigeria, the Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has issued a warning to pilots recently of severe weather conditions between May and December and demanded that all pilots operating in or into the country adhere strictly to safety standard procedure during take-off or landings or face sanctions.
But aside bad weather, pilots can also abort the landing of an aircraft in cases where there is an obstruction on the runway, which is often described as a runway incursion.
For instance, an aircraft that is departing from an airport might have been given a clearance to take-off but doesn’t respond quickly enough, or a aircraft that has landed at the runway might have a problem causing the pilot to stop or slowdown on the runway.
In either of these incident, the ATC at the control tower might see these happenings and instruct the next aircraft due to land to “a go around” or, even the pilot of the approaching aircraft might see that the runway is not clear and can also make the decision to do a go round.
In fact, it happens repeatedly that pilots on approach to a runway or ATC observing from a control tower find many things that might not be authorised to be on the runway such as people, ground vehicles, animals, construction equipment among others that can be inimical to the safer landing of an aircraft and which warrants th pilots aborting the landing of the aircraft.