Preventing Tailstrike During Go-around Near the Ground
The focus of this article is go-around near the ground, sometimes called, “rejected landing”. This follows our previous article: “A Focus on the Landing Flare” article published September 2020 and “A Focus on the Takeoff Rotation” published January 2021. Those articles provided recommendations for avoiding tailstrikes when performing landing flare and takeoff rotation. There is also a higher risk of tailstrike when a go-around is required near the ground. This article provides additional recommendations and observations for flight crews to help them avoid tailstrike events during this phase.
Thrust Reverser Selection is a Decision to Stop
The SOP for landing requests that the flight crew perform a full stop landing after thrust reversers selection. However, in-service flight data analysis revealed that the equivalent of one go-around per month is performed after selection of thrust reversers. This article describes an event where the flight crew performed a go-around after they had selected thrust reversers on an A320 aircraft. The reverser on one engine remained deployed until the end of the flight. The article explains how adherence to SOPs will prevent recurrence of this kind of event and describes the product enhancements that Airbus developed as additional safety barriers.