KL919 (Amsterdam to Southampton) today

[nw1]

Observed this flight (KLM) coming into land today.

It had slightly unusual behaviour. It came in over west Southampton (which is unusual even, as was the case today today, flights come in to land from the south) before doing a tight loop over the Hythe area. Then it came into land via the south approach before taking off again and gaining altitude.

It then looped someway to the north, and repeated roughly the same path before successfully landing.

This would have been around 17:10 local time.

I'm aware of stacks (having experienced them all too often coming into Gatwick!) but this was different in the sense that it appeared to almost land before taking off again.

There didn't seem to be any other flights trying to come in at the same time, which suggests something unusual was going on, e.g. the airport couldn't receive the flight for some reason.

Anyone seen this sort of behaviour before? Or is aware of anything going on at SOU earlier today? I've experienced it myself trying to land at Guernsey in fog, but there was no remotely adverse weather in the area.

 

[westcoaster]

Looks to have been a standard go around. Minimum reported altitude was 50Ft.

Pics courtesy of flightradar24.com

 

[nw1]

Looks to have been a standard go around. Minimum reported altitude was 50Ft.

Pics courtesy of flightradar24.com

OK - thanks for that. Had to look up the term "go around" but I guess there was a temporary obstruction on the runway, or similar.

 

[westcoaster]

No could be

OK - thanks for that. Had to look up the term "go around" but I guess there was a temporary obstruction on the runway, or similar.

ATC instructions, unstable approach or any number of things can cause a go around.

My father in law had one at Hong Kong recently, the landing jet ahead did not clear the runway quick enough.

 

[BananaRepublic]

A "loop" is a vertical aerobatic manoeuvre, as in the old phrase "loop the loop"..
What you observed was simply the aircraft turning onto final approach and following the go-around, turning left downwind to position to make another approach.

Aircraft inbound to Southampton from the north and east, arrive from the north of the airfield (the Winchester end) and if landing on r/w 02, will then be positioned to fly downwind to the south of Southampton, before turning onto the final approach track and centreline for 02

Whatever the reason for the missed approach and go-around, the only (very) slightly unusual thing here, was the aircraft was positioned to the west of the airport, for a left base turn onto final approach.
Most of the time the downwind leg is performed to the east of the field (down the Hamble River) with a right base turn onto the r/w 02 approach.
That may have been for local traffic reasons (e.g. for instance, a light aircraft or helicopter operating to the east or whatever).
Note that in addition to the Police, Air Ambulance and Coastguard, there's a lot of private helicopter traffic in this area, particularly at weekends. Many of these do not show up on FR24.


z

 

[route101]

Seen this quite often at Southampton with flights doing go arounds.