Last week Wednesday, on April 11, 2018, a Thai Airways Boeing 747-400 (HS-TGX) performed a go around at Tokyo Haneda airport due to unexpected loss of altitude. Today, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) classified it as a serious incident and launched an investigation into the matter.
The aircraft took off from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport at 4:43PM local time as flight TG660, and after about five hours of flight time started approaching runway 22 of Haneda airport.
When the aircraft found itself at an altitude of about 175 meters as far as 8 kilometers northeast of the airport, the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) went off, and the pilots performed a go around.
About fifteen minutes later, at 12:04AM, the aircraft landed safely on runway 22.
Since MLIT believes the pilots were mistaken about their location in relation to the runway, and that the 384 passengers and crew onboard were in danger, it launched an investigation today.
While the investigation has just started, it will be interesting to see the results. I am especially interested in knowing whether the fact that the flight departed three hours late and the fatigue the crew might have experienced due to that were part of the issue.
