I just landed at Chicago en route to London. There’s something about me and ORD. Last time I flew in here, the approach controller got the spacing wrong, and we had to go around. So when we started a go-around procedure about a mile out, I assumed that it was the same thing. But no…. eventually our captain told us that we hadn’t got a green light on the nose landing gear of our MD-80, so they had to use ‘an alternate procedure’. And then we stooged around for 10 minutes over the lake while they lined up all the emergency equipment next to the runway, just in case.
Many passengers didn’t understand what was going on. I got the impression that those of us that did were simultaneously calming anxious passengers while fully expecting the gear to collapse on landing. But it was all OK. When we finally landed, it was delightfully smooth.
And now the ORD-LHR flight is boarding. More anon.