YSSY strong winds and go arounds

[Brett Williamson]

I got to the airport around 5pm today and sat under the tower to watch the landings on RWY 25. I must have turned up during a particularly windy time.

Within the space of 15 mins I saw quite a few go arounds. From memory (I have a bad memory so you guys who track these things please correct me):

DJ 1628 E-190 went around twice. Both times he aborted at about 1000 feet.
UPS 34 MD-11 was literally 20 feet above the runway when he powered off.
A Qantas 737-800 went around next. I think a couple of other aircraft did too.
Then FedEx 77(?) MD-11 aborted at about a 1000 feet as well.

All this added to the stress levels of the ATC and the other pilots on approach as there was a fairly lengthy queue building up waiting to depart due to the single runway operations.

Very interesting. Plus I got to see my favourite MD-11 for longer.