Malaysia Airlines Aborted Landing at Kuanta
 

So now we are going to start second guessing another pilots decision to go around. How far off the ground he was is irrelevant. He decided the landing wasn't safe and aborted the attempt.

I know at ExpressJet we train for low energy aborts.

I'm sure this is being thoroughly discussed over on A-Net. May want to try there.

Sounds fairly routine, even though the media likes to blow things out of proportion.

Due to weather or other factors, a large percentage of airline flights depart with a pre-planned diversion site (in many cases the point of origin) and plenty of extra fuel for holding and flight to the alternate airport.

Depending on aircraft type and instrument approach type it would be normal and legal to abort (aka missed approach) the landing at 200', 100' or even lower. Instrument approaches are designed to get you very close to the runway so the pilots can make a decision to land or go missed based on what they see at that point. Business as usual.

BTDT, numerous times. Never considered it a horror.

BTW - nice 2nd post, welcome to APC. :rolleyes:

Thanks for your comments and you are probably right, from a pilots point of view it was probably within the envelope of “normal” flying.
I was a passenger on the flight and in all my years of flying fixed wing and helicopters (I work in the oil industry), it was by far my worst trip. First the surprise by the aborted landing and then being thrown around inside a dark tropical thunder storm.

No news on Airliners.net and good call by the pilot not to land. A similar incident happened in Phuket, Thailand in 2007 where a MD82 crashed while attempting to go-around during a rain storm.

Having flown well over 100+ flights a year for more than 25 years, aborted landing as well as emergency "stops" are par for the course.
I do remember some 20 years ago when I experience really rough weather and a series of aborted landings, it was like a catastrophe. It was a flight on NWA from MCO to MEM and after 2 failed landings we diverted to BNA where we had another aborted landing and then landed so hard that the crew stopped the DC9 and exited the plane for a visual landing gear inspection before taxiing. After refueling nearly 1/2 the passenger bailed before we left for MEM again for a picture perfect landing.
That was 3 aborted landings in a day, which rattled me a bit, but after that I became par for the course.

Too often do flyers see any deviation in flight as a near disaster ... it happens all the time.

Good call on the crew's part. We call it ADM or Aeronautical Decision Making. Oh, and welcome to Airline....Pilot....Central.