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Litanies
From the Flight Deck
by Kevin R. Dingman
The story of a go-around at DCA
Litany: noun, plural litanies. A prolonged account: a list, catalog, enumeration.
It’s ten-past midnight at the end of a 14-hour day. You’re flying an ILS; the weather is 300/1. Winds at 3,000 feet on final show a 40-knot tailwind. It’s reported at the
surface as a direct cross at 20 knots. The runway is wet, but braking action is good. Runway length required for your jet tonight is 4,750 feet; runway length available, if on glide slope, is 5,862.
On five-mile final, the approach is not working. You’re too fast. The spacing on the plane in front of you is insufficient, you’re not fully configured, you dropped your pen, and a shoe came untied. You’re dreading the go-around because the missed follows a critical ground path. You feel the hairs standing up. If you are a musician, this is an unrehearsed time signature and key change at Carnegie Hall. If a CFO, Mr. Potter just stole the Building & Loan’s bank deposit. What now? You go around.
Announce the go-around to your partner, press the TOGA (takeoff/go-around) button. Verify the motors spool up to
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the correct power setting. Follow the flight director. Flaps to approach. Positive rate, gear up. Set missed approach altitude. Verify roll mode, LNAV or HDG. Set speed, VNAV or LVL CHG in the FMS. Call tower. Tell them you’re goin’ around. Answer their question about why.
Switch to departure control. Answer their question about what you want to do next. For now, you tell them vectors for another approach. The flight attendant chime is going off or your pax are calling you; they need to talk. Could be something bad and not simply them wanting to know what happened.
As PIC, you must prioritize the multiple sources of change and possibly critical, incoming information. Retract the flaps. Get stabilized on the obstacle avoidance procedure, missed approach, special use airspace avoidance track, or the heading and altitude assigned by departure control. Make sure their instructions don’t send you into the rocks. Level off at the missed approach altitude. Run the after- takeoff checklist. If not already done, engage the autopilot or give the airplane to the FO. Check your fuel and decide: try again or divert. Tell the FO your thoughts, get his/her input and then tell ATC your decision. Call the FA’s. Tell them what happened and your decision. Make a PA to the folks and explain why we didn’t land. Reassure them that all is well as you tell them your decision. Execute your deci- sion, and if it’s to divert to an alternate, send a message to the company; tell them your decision. Be grateful this was not a single-engine missed approach. Take another breath. Bow to the applauding Carnegie Hall audience, snatch your deposit back from Potter.
Good work, you just did a missed approach/go-around. Maybe it was the first one this year, maybe the first one in this airplane, maybe the first real one ever. You’re on your way around the radar pattern or to the alternate. Look around. You will have missed something not directly addressed by a checklist: landing lights, deice equipment, spilled your coffee, something. Fix it. Look at your fuel again. Re-calculate for the radar pattern or the trip to the alternate. It’s been busy so far, but if your fuel-math is wrong and one or two motors cough because of it, that will be what busy really feels like.
But your math was good. Take breath number two, ask your partner how your hair looks. The go-around procedure for your jet most likely has similarities to the one above.