How to fly safer go-arounds in general aviation

Go-arounds in general aviation: the easy maneuver that still kills people

In every syllabus, the go-around is taught as a simple drill. Power, pitch, clean up, try again.

In the real world, the picture is messier. Accident reviews in general aviation show a stubborn pattern: total landing accidents have fallen over the past two decades, but the share of fatal accidents during go-arounds has gone up. A large chunk of those fatals involve stalls or loss of control close to the ground, often after a delayed or panicked go-around decision.

Go-arounds are supposed to be the safety valve when a landing is not working out. When they are flown badly-or not flown at all-they become part of the accident chain instead.

This guide is for pilots flying typical light GA aircraft in the circuit, whether you are working toward an RAAus RPC, a CASA RPL/PPL, or the equivalent with your local authority. The goal is not to make you scared of go-arounds. It is to make them boringly predictable.

Why go-arounds deserve more respect

Most of the risk lives near the ground

Approach and landing are already the highest-risk phases of flight in GA. When something is off on short final-a float, a bounce, traffic on the runway, gusts-you are close to the ground, slow, and busy.

The go-around is the one tool that lets you reset all of that. Done early and well, it turns a marginal landing into just another circuit. Done late or badly, it leaves you slow, uncoordinated, and out of ideas a few hundred feet above the ground.

Go-around accidents are small in number, big in consequences

Across various accident datasets, go-arounds remain a small slice of total GA accidents. But when they go wrong, they go wrong hard.

Common patterns from accident reports and safety studies:

• A higher proportion of go-around accidents end up being fatal compared with “plain” landing accidents.
• Many of those fatals involve stalls or loss of control soon after power is applied.
• A chunk happen in instrument conditions or at night, when workload and disorientation are already higher.

This is the uncomfortable point: the maneuver you brief as routine is also a frequent final step in the accident chain when mishandled.

Pilots still hesitate to go around

Even in airline operations, Flight Safety Foundation studies found that crews only executed a go-around in a minority of approaches where the objective criteria said they should. In GA you often see the same mindset on a smaller stage:

• “I can salvage this.”
• “I do not want to waste the approach or the landing fee.”
• “Everyone is watching.”

Decide when to go around before you get there

You will not have spare brain cycles at 50–100 feet to debate whether you should go around. You need one or two clear triggers you brief on downwind and respect on final.

Here are practical triggers many instructors and safety programs use in light GA aircraft:

• Unstabilized by the gate.
  • Pick a gate altitude that matches your operation-for example, 500 ft AGL in VMC, 1,000 ft in IMC.
  • By that point you want the right speed, a sensible descent rate, landing configuration set, and only small corrections.
  • If you are still chasing airspeed, power, or centerline: go around.
• Not landing in the first third of the runway.
  • If you are still floating or skipping beyond the first third, treat it as an automatic go-around.
  • On short strips, move the decision point even earlier.
• Runway not clear or a new hazard appears.
  • Traffic slow to vacate, a backtracking aircraft, wildlife, birds, sudden FOD, or a vehicle crossing the threshold are all reasons to abandon the landing.
• Bounce, porpoise, or sideways drift you cannot fix without aggression.
  • The first bounce is a warning, not an invitation to keep forcing it on.
  • If the picture starts to look ugly, stop trying to “save it”.
• Any serious doubt.
  • If a small voice is already saying “this does not feel right”, that is your earliest, cheapest warning. Act while you still have options.

You do not need a long list. Pick a small set of triggers that fit your aircraft, strip, and experience. Brief them and treat them as non-negotiable.

How to fly a clean go-around in a light GA airplane

Exact numbers and checklist calls belong to your POH and school SOPs. What follows is the logic behind them.

Think in five parts: power, pitch, rudder, clean-up, and direction.

1. Power: be positive, not panicked

• Add power smoothly to the correct setting.
  • In most singles that is full power; in high-powered types there may be a published go-around power.
  • “Be quick, but do not slam.” A sudden, violent shove can create strong yaw and roll before you are ready.
• Confirm you grabbed the right control.
  • Under stress, pilots have reached for the mixture or prop instead of the throttle.
  • A brief “throttle full, mixture rich, prop full fine” (where fitted) is cheap insurance.

2. Pitch: aim for a climb attitude, not an escape climb

Many go-around accidents start here. Power comes in, the nose comes up sharply, the airspeed collapses, the left wing drops. There is no height to recover.

• Set a known climb attitude.
  • Before you ever need it, learn what your Vy or initial climb pitch picture looks like in your airplane for a go-around configuration.
  • Aim for that, not for “sky”. In a lot of light GA types, that is somewhere around 7–10 degrees nose up.
• Respect trim and flaps.
  • With landing flaps and nose-up trim, adding power can create a strong pitch-up.
  • Be ready to push forward while the aircraft accelerates, then trim nose-down as you settle into the climb.
• Do not try to convert a bad flare into a steep zoom.
  • If you balloon or bounce, resist the urge to yank. Level the attitude, add power, and transition into a controlled climb instead.

3. Rudder: keep it coordinated or do not climb yet

Right rudder is not optional on a go-around in a single.

• Lead with rudder as power comes in.
  • Think of your right hand and right foot moving forward together.
  • If you wait to see the nose swing or the centerline drift, you are late.
• Watch both the ball and the runway picture.
  • A skidding, overbanked climb at low speed is how you end up in an accelerated stall.
• Train your feet on purpose.
  • If your aircraft has a yaw damper, spend time with it off in a safe environment so you know what full-power yaw actually feels like.

4. Clean-up: change configuration in stages

Flaps and gear changes alter lift and drag right when you are already close to stall.

• Confirm a positive rate and safe speed first.
  • Many operators use “power, pitch, positive rate” as the gate before any major configuration change.
• Retract flaps in steps, not all at once.
  • Go from landing flaps to an intermediate setting, let the aircraft accelerate and climb away from obstacles, then bring the flaps fully up.
  • Dumping all flaps at once at low speed can remove lift faster than the added power can compensate.
• In retractables, be slow and deliberate with gear.
  • Tidy up the gear once you are climbing and a landing on the remaining runway is no longer realistic.
  • Touch the right handle and call it. More than one accident has involved the gear coming up when the pilot meant to reduce flaps.

5. Direction and workload: straight ahead until stable

You are not done just because the airplane is climbing.

• Keep the wings level until you have margin.
  • Bank increases stall speed. Avoid low, steep turns immediately after the go-around.
  • If ATC gives a turn instruction at low level, you can say “unable” until you have the speed and height to do it safely.
• Defer everything that is not flying.
  • Radio calls, after-landing checks, and explanations can wait.
  • A simple “<callsign> going around” is enough until you are cleaned up and stable.

The failure modes you actually see in accident reports

When you read through go-around accidents, the same themes pop up over and over:

• Delayed decision.
  • The pilot keeps a bad approach alive, floats, bounces, then only goes around near the end of the runway or with the aircraft already out of shape.
• Over-pitch and stall.
  • Nose pitched up aggressively with landing flaps still in, speed decays, left wing drops, impact to the side of the runway.
• Little or no rudder.
  • Torque and P-factor are left to do their thing. The aircraft rolls and yaws off the centerline at low height.
• Abrupt flap retraction.
  • All flaps removed at once at a marginal speed, producing a sudden sink or stall.
• Wrong control or configuration.
  • Grabbing the mixture instead of the throttle, or lifting the gear while still over the runway.

None of these are exotic failures. They are normal human reactions under stress. That is why you train them out when the stakes are low.

Training go-arounds that feel like real life

It is easy to tick the go-around box on a syllabus with a couple of tidy demonstrations on a perfect day. It is harder — and far more useful — to practice them the way they actually show up.

Make go-arounds a routine part of practice

• Build at least one go-around into every set of circuits.
• Practice them from different points: short final, the flare, after a bounce.
• Mix in different reasons: traffic not clear, surprise tailwind, wildlife, unstable approach.

The goal is to make “go-around” feel like just another normal option, not a rare, dramatic maneuver.

Add safe surprise and workload

When you are current and comfortable, ask a CFI or safety pilot to introduce some surprise:

• A go-around called by the right seat.
• A go-around called by tower mid-approach.
• A go-around while you are in the middle of a radio call or checklist.

You want to experience the startle and see how your hands and feet behave when you were mentally already in “landing” mode.

Debrief with numbers, not just feelings

After each go-around, ask a few concrete questions:

• When did we decide to go around? Could we have made that call earlier?
• What were our speed and attitude as power came in?
• How much lateral drift did we see? Did we stay over the centerline?
• How smooth were our flap and gear changes?

Over time, you will see a pattern: earlier decisions, smaller attitude swings, and cleaner, more boring go-arounds.

Building a go-around culture in your flying

In many flying clubs and schools, landings still carry most of the ego. A squeaker on the centerline earns a smile; a go-around earns quiet embarrassment.

A safer culture turns that around:

• You praise early, well-flown go-arounds.
• You treat them as a sign of judgment, not weakness.
• You normalize talking about the ones that felt messy, so others can learn.

At the light end of general aviation, most of your flying will be in the circuit at familiar airfields. The trap is to get casual. The reality is that a large share of serious GA accidents still happen there — on ordinary days, in familiar aircraft, with pilots who thought they could “make it work”.

A go-around is not a failure. It is a decision to keep options open.

The more you brief it, practice it, and treat it as routine, the easier it becomes to choose it early — long before a messy landing becomes the start of an accident report.