06 July 2026
Critical decision-making under pressure: From high-speed rejected take-offs to low-height go-arounds
In aviation, operations do not always unfold as planned. Pilots must continuously adapt, make rapid decisions, and act decisively. While training prepares them for abnormal situations, some decisions are particularly critical because they must be made within seconds, and errors can have catastrophic consequences.
Two such decisions stand out: the rejection of a take-off at high speed and the rejection of a landing at low height. Both scenarios share common characteristics: extreme time pressure, elevated operational risks, and significant human factor challenges. Comparing them provides valuable insight into pilot decision-making under stress. Lessons learned from decades of safety improvements in rejected take-off procedures can also help to identify emerging risks associated with rejected landings.
The industry is also faced with the challenge, and opportunity, of a transition to lower carbon, more sustainable fuel sources and the drive towards net-zero.
High-Speed Rejected Take-off: A Story of Progressive Safety Improvement
In the early jet age, pilots were trained to react immediately to engine failures during take-off. Certification standards emphasised rapid reaction times and precise execution of rejected take-off (RTO) manoeuvres. However, real-world situations proved far more complex than the binary scenarios envisioned in training.
Engine anomalies were not always clearly identifiable, and many unexpected events during the take-off roll - such as unusual noises, vibrations, or minor system alerts - were often misinterpreted as critical failures. As a result, pilots frequently choose to abort take-offs even at high speed, sometimes beyond V1, the decision speed beyond which stopping within the remaining runway is no longer guaranteed.
Accident investigations revealed a concerning trend: a significant number of runway overruns were caused by unnecessarily high-speed RTOs. In many cases, the aircraft could have safely continued the take-off. However, faced with sudden and ambiguous cues, pilots tended to adopt a conservative, ‘stop-minded’ approach.
Human factors played a key role. Startle effect and time pressure often led to missed or delayed ‘V1’ callouts. Without clear confirmation that the aircraft had passed the decision point, pilots reverted instinctively to aborting the take-off.
Recognising this issue, the aviation industry implemented a series of transformative safety measures:
- Alert management improvements: Non-critical alerts are now inhibited during high-speed phases of take-off to reduce distraction and ambiguity.
- Simplified decision criteria: Standard operating procedures were revised to limit high-speed RTOs to a small number of clearly defined, critical failures.
- Automation of callouts: Synthetic voice systems replaced manual ‘V1’ callouts, ensuring consistency and reliability.
- Procedural changes: Pilots are required to remove their hands from thrust levers at V1, reducing the risk of instinctive thrust reduction beyond the decision point.
These measures collectively shifted the pilot mindset from ‘stop-minded’ to ‘go-minded.’ Decision-making became more structured, less ambiguous, and more resilient under stress.
In parallel, improvements were made to the execution of the RTO manoeuvre itself. Investigations had shown that certified stopping performance was not always achieved due to delays in deploying spoilers, activating thrust reversers, or applying maximum braking. In response:
- Spoiler deployment was automated upon touchdown.
- Autobrake systems were enhanced with dedicated RTO modes.
The result has been a dramatic reduction in runway overruns related to RTOs. Today, such events are rare, reflecting a mature safety model built on decades of operational feedback and system design improvements.
Rejected Landing at Low Height: An Emerging Safety Challenge
The final approach and landing phase shares many similarities with take-off. It is a dynamic transition from flight to ground, requiring high levels of concentration and precise control. However, it is also a phase where time and cognitive resources are limited, particularly when unexpected situations arise close to the ground.
Historically, accident data revealed a strong ‘landing bias’ among pilots, a tendency to continue landing even when conditions were unstable or unsafe. This bias contributed to runway excursions, hard landings, and other incidents.
To address this, the aviation community launched extensive safety initiatives promoting the go-around as a normal, proactive manoeuvre rather than a failure. Key measures included:
- Stabilised approach criteria: Clear, standardised policies defining when a go-around is mandatory.
- Enhanced alerting systems: Tools to support timely recognition of unstable approaches.
- Crew resource management (CRM): Empowering first officers to call for a go-around without hesitation.
- Flight Data Monitoring (FDM): Systematic tracking and reporting of unstable approaches and continued landings.
These efforts have successfully shifted the pilot mindset toward being more ‘go-around minded.’ While this represents a positive evolution, it has also introduced new and potentially underestimated risks.
One such risk is tail strike during late go-arounds. Initiating a go-around at very low height – particularly after touchdown – requires precise handling and strong crew coordination. Accident investigations have identified recurring issues:
- Uncoordinated control inputs between pilots
- Abrupt or excessive pitch commands
- Confusion during transfer of control
- Occurrence of dual inputs on flight controls
These factors can lead to improper aircraft attitude and tail strikes. The persistence of such incidents worldwide suggests that this manoeuvre remains insufficiently mastered.
An even more critical issue concerns the timing of the go-around decision relative to thrust reverser deployment. Standard landing procedures require the pilot flying to deploy thrust reversers immediately after touchdown. However, a go-around can technically be initiated after touchdown, but not after reversers have been selected.
The reason is straightforward: once thrust reversers are deployed, there is no guarantee they will stow symmetrically, or that engines will deliver uniform forward thrust. Attempting a go-around in this configuration introduces a significant risk of asymmetric thrust and potential loss of control.
This creates a critical dilemma for pilots:
- Continue a landing that may appear unsafe.
- Or initiate a hazardous go-around with compromised thrust conditions.
Compounding the issue, in a two-pilot cockpit, one pilot may call for a go-around without realising that the other has already deployed the thrust reversers. In such time-critical situations, breakdowns in communication and coordination can have severe consequences.
A notable example occurred in Copenhagen in 2022, when a thrust reverser failed to stow during a late go-around, leading to a near loss-of-control event. While the captain’s decision was driven by safety concerns, the situation exposed a significant operational vulnerability and served as a wake-up call for the industry.
Importantly, if all goes well, a go-around initiated after thrust reverser selection will not be detected or reported by pilots. And if pilots want to report one, it's likely they will not remember the exact go-around sequence. Better reporting could be obtained through the implementation of instant flight-replay tools for pilots, such as CEFA AMS, capable of displaying cockpit actions and precise landing-phase animations. While only a few serious cases are formally investigated, estimates suggest that unsafe late go-around decisions after thrust reverser selection may occur more frequently, potentially monthly.
Bridging the Safety Gap
The evolution of RTO procedures demonstrates how a combination of operational discipline, system design, and human factors integration can significantly enhance safety. By simplifying decisions, reducing ambiguity, and supporting pilots with automation, the industry successfully mitigated a major source of risk.
In contrast, rejected landings at low height remain an area where safety defences are still developing. While promoting the go-around has corrected the historical ‘landing bias,’ it has also introduced new challenges that require careful management.
The key lesson is clear: improving safety is not only about encouraging the right decision, but also about ensuring that the decision can be executed safely under real-world conditions. This requires enhanced crew coordination and communication, targeted training for late go-around scenarios, continued monitoring through data-driven safety programs and the use of instant flight replay tools by pilots.
As aviation continues to evolve, the industry must apply the same rigour and systemic thinking that transformed rejected take-off safety to the domain of rejected landings. Only then can these critical, time-pressured decisions be made – and executed – with the highest level of safety.
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