Non-routine landing

Last night, I was coming home from San Antonio on Delta via Cincinnati. Not a great day to fly with all of the weird weather in the mid west, but decent enough. I'm not usually a nervous flyer, but I was a bit on edge for whatever reason (too much coffee? too little?).

The flight from San Antonio to Cincinnati was pretty normal - some bumps at the end, but not as bad as I had thought it might be. So far, so good. The flight from Cincinnati to Roanoke was ready to go pretty much on time and the weather seemed to be lifting a bit. The pilot was honest in his pre-flight chat that the ride was going to be bumpy over to Roanoke (I always appreciate the honesty). The climb out was just the normal chop you get when it is raining and the flight was fairly smooth. So far, so good.

It was heavy overcast in Roanoke and the decent seemed to be taking a long time. When we finally got close enough to see the ground (felt like 100 feet but was probably around 1000), instead of continuing on down, we pulled up hard. I guess the approach was off and, like everyone, I'd certainly rather get the landing right.

So, we circled back around to try again. The cabin was very quiet and you could feel the stress level increasing (really, really quiet with everyone kind of looking straight ahead). I was trying to look at the bright side - the only other times I've had that happen, it felt like you were in a clothes dryer on tumble, at least this was smooth air.

The second approach seemed to take a long time. When we could finally see the ground, it seemed like we were going really fast. I suppose that is just because you usually have time to get used to the speed as you approach the ground. With the limited visibility, we saw all the lights at once and it was disorienting. Then, after being below the ceiling for 10 seconds, we hung a hard left. Definitely not what you want to feel when you know the runway is a mile away and coming at you at 150 mph. But, to his credit, the pilot straightened it out and in another few seconds and we had a smooth landing.

Intellectually, I know that air travel is very safe and it is hard for me to tell how dangerous this actually was but the non-routine landings sure scare me.