A380 autoland and QF12 go around today

[Jason Le]

QF12 VH-OQE went around today very close to the threshold.

Pilots stated that they lost the ILS. On the 2nd approach they advised they would conduct a manual landing. The tower had a bit of joke about it too.

Is it QF (or most A380 operators) procedure to use 'autoland' for the A380?

Was good to watch the go around in any case!

[Sara Marks]

Thanks for the post Jason. I saw the QF A380 go around from my apartment and was wondering the reason.

[Steve Crook]

The Emirates flight from Auckland did a go around yesterday afternoon on 16R. I heard it coming past my house but couldn't see it through the windows as usual. When I went to the door it was a lot higher than usual and descending at quite a steep angle. I didn't hear anything after I saw it but wasn't surprised to see it fly past again a while later on another attempt. It seemed that flights around that time had a higher approach path than usual. I think it was an SQ 744 that came in after the EK and it was high as well.

[Gareth Forwood]

Is it QF (or most A380 operators) procedure to use 'autoland' for the A380?

I'm not sure about the A380, but I've heard Etihad telling the controller they were doing a full simulated autoland for training - this might've been the same sort of thing...

[David W]

I thought that for most airline company's it was a requirement to perform an auto land once a month for the airlines that are capable of doing an auto land.

[Mark W]

Without commenting specifically about QF12, the actual airplane has a recency requirement for autolands.

The autoland facility on the A380, A330, B747 and B767 must be exercised at least once every 45 days.

The Tech log identifies the recency status and crew are required to requalify the aircraft within 5 days of expiry.

The B737 autoland recency is actually a maintenance task, known as the Land Verify Check.