So i was flying into MROC today in a 777-F. on my initial approach it was uneventful then right on about 3 mile final Tower allowed a flight to line up whiles traffic inffront of me touched down and was vacting the runway, the landing traffic did not vacate intime. The lined up traffic was cleared but too late and i initiated a go around as i didnt feel comfortable having a 2 second separation with the jet.
Then on my second approach after the go around i was sequenced behind 2 smaller aircraft for some reason. a 737 and CRJ, 737 was already following closely. once the CRJ and 737 touched down tower send please expedite for them. and asked me to maintian slowest practical speed even though im at my slowest possible speed right above stall so i continued my approach hoping theyed vacate whcih they did. then the moment i was about to touch down i was issued “go around” by tower and after that handed off to radar. once handed off to radar approach i was declined entry, told to divert. I had about 40mins of fuel remaining with nowhere to divert i ended up quitting the flight as there were no suitable airport to divert to within my fuel range without landing a 777 on a tiny regional airport.
Am i in the wrong or is there a catch to this whole situation?
Hello, Marcochoy2007!
First of all, I want to commend you for not disclosing the names of the controllers involved, many do not do so these days. Based on what I have read, it seems that the situation was not entirely your fault.
As approach controllers, it is our responsibility to coordinate with tower controllers to determine the necessary space for at least one departure to comfortably depart between landings. However, there may be unforeseen situations that are beyond our control, such as a slow exiting pilot or a failure to follow approach speed commands issued by the tower or approach. In regards to your first point, it was a potentially risky decision for the controller to ask an aircraft to line up when you were on a 3NM final. Nonetheless, you handled the situation well by initiating a go-around when you realized the runway was not vacant. This was not your fault if you followed all instructions to the point given to you previously.
Regarding your second point, a 737 and a CRJ are not small aircraft by any means. As mentioned above, it is possible that an unforeseen event may have occurred. I do not see a reason why Approach would have declined your approach back into the airport if you followed all the instructions given to you previously. I assume approach was connected and sequenced you before hand, right? Because if no approach was present before hand, it would have been up to you to keep a safe distance from the aircraft in-front of you in the pattern. One possible reason could have been that the airspace was to busy, which would have nothing to do with you being at fault.
I would recommend sending a private message to both controllers to get both sides of the story and move forward from there. I am sorry that this happened to you. Safe travels, hope this helped clear a few things!
yea i think there may have been some misunderstandings or issues…i was following instructions as provided by ATC doing everything as told without issues but just the go arounds and inadequete separation twice was little annoying and being declined entry back into airport without a suitable diversion pissed me off a bit… never happened before and ill prob catch up with the atc to understand more on their side.
well i dont really need to list names i think here no need to shame people for something like this… it could most likely be a misunderstanding or a mistake on their end no need for name shaming the controllers doing their job at best…
Thanks for sharing your experience. This sounds like an unfortunate one and you certainly shouldn’t have been denied a landing after two approaches and go-arounds that likely were due to ATC spacing issues. If you’re comfortable sharing your replay and the names of the controllers via DM, I’d be happy to provide feedback so others don’t have a similarly negative experience. Cheers, Kevin!