This past weekend (Oct 27th) I had two aborted landings at LHR on a BA 777-200 (flight 106 from DXB to LHR).
We got caught in the gales which affected the region. The first approach was pretty bumpy…the worst I’ve ever been in. About 30ft off the runway we got hit by a 90mph gust that nearly burried the right wing into the ground. 180,000lbs of thrust and a few seconds later and we were back up at 4,000 ft. Several passengers got sick from that roller coaster.
We went around for another attempt but the pilot gave up at about 500 ft and we ended up diverting to Stansted. As some of you know, they ended up closing LHR and canceling about 70 BA flights that day. Cabin crew did an excellent job looking after the passengers and everyone cheered once we were on the ground. Funny thing is that even when parked on the ground, the plane was being shaken quite a bit by the wind. Made it hard to walk around…almost like being in turbulence.
That was the closest I’ve come (that I know of) to an accident in the air. I had a window seat overlooking the wing and I was pretty concerned.