On tues 2-26 approx 1500 hrs while stranded at hou due to jblu e190 to jfk being broken(hydraulics) was watching t/o and landings saw an unk md80 (unk carrier) on approach to unk runway( i haven’t looked it up yet) any way winds were approx 15-20 but nothing was affected any who it was a normal approach for the md80 type all of a sudden approx 200 ft off rw he goosed it made an abrupt climbing turn to the left and at approx 4-500 ft saw a swa 737(obviously) rotating from same rw. it was pretty close in fact a couple of copter jocks from nyc area down for heliexpo were watching also and commented on the situation also. it did not appear to be a normal go around or missed approach since there were a couple of other a/c that did perform missed approaches when the wind was at it’s worst. does anyone have any more info on this? or was i seeing things from being stuck at hou for WAY too long?
Typical Busy Airport Approaches…Sounds like a Slow Pilot on SWA who failed to Vacate before the MD80 was ready to touchdown…
You can go to Airliners.net and there are all kinds of pictures of one Plane Lifting Off as another is about to touch down…
What was different about the MD80’s go around that makes you think it wasn’t normal?
As far as I can tell, there’s not currently MD80 service at HOU, so it was probably an Airtran 717
Continental maintains MD80s at HOU. I’ve seen several there each time I flew to/from HOU.
Continental retired MD80’s from its fleet January of 2005. And the airline has no maintenance activities at KHOU.
Yeah, I remember seeing one of their last two MD’s make a fuel stop here heading to Russia or somewhere in Asia. I remember they pulled up and used a rickety ladder for the airstair. Flown by ferries.
I remember seeing them at HOU in Oct 2001, Aug 2002, and May 2005. I don’t recall seeing them in my second trip in Nov 2007 but seem to remember at least one there in Augu 2007 (may be mistaken about his sighting).
Continental does have a maintenance base at HOU. Look at this excerpt from an article at Planenews Aviation News Portal (emphasis mine).
Continental Airlines-Workers Celebrate Profit Sharing 2007 in Style.
Jeff and IAH Hub VP Debbie Price helped more than 200 co-workers at IAH celebrate, and Jeff and Tech Ops Planning Staff VP Manny Naeem, and **Hobby Maintenance Base **Senior Director Benny King were at HOU Thursday. It was raining cash in CLE, as play money fell from the ceiling. Near the ticket counter, Airport Services Sr. VP Bill Meehan and CLE Sr. Director Robbie Anderson helped more than 100 co-workers celebrate. There were hundreds of similar celebrations throughout the system, and co-workers who took photos of their events are asked to send them to
Continental absolutely does conduct maintenance at their facility at KHOU.
I vaguely remember something about Continental doing maintenance at HOUR due to lack of room at IAH. Do you know if this is true?
What part of the field?..and what type of maintenance? I was their a few months ago and the only airline maint. that I could see going on was Southwest at the NE corner of the field…
I don’t know what type of maintenance. It’s on the west side of the airport near the 1940 Air Terminal Museum. If you get a chance. visit the museum. It’s a great place for learning about the airline history of the Houston area.
Wow…how I missed those several hangars, I dunno… 
And I’m not even that old yet… 
Excuse me while I go and have another slice of humble pie…
regardless, CO doesn’t operate MD80’s anymore.
However, I did look it up again and DL does operate a few MD80’s to ATL so it could’ve been that too.
At least I knew that I had that part right… 
Now THAT is funny. Have you ever seen SWA taxiing? I hear they practive V1 cuts at taxi speed since it’s within 5 knots of V1. A slow SWA pilot. I’ll believe it when I see it.