Welcome to LaGuardia…

It was go-home day and launching with our back to the storm seemed appropriate as we headed to Detroit, where we were scheduled to step onto another jet and catch a ride home to finish our trip.

As we taxied to our gate in Detroit, the printer by the first officer’s seat began to spit out a long scroll with a modified schedule for each of us. We were tasked with ferrying an empty jet to LaGuardia Airport (KLGA), then we’d catch a ride home in the back of a different jet. It meant a bit of extra money in our pocket for not a lot of extra time away from home, so we acknowledged the change and stepped to the appropriate gate. 

As we approached the gate, my phone rang again. One of our schedulers had a favor to ask. I say a favor, but once you pick up the phone, calling it a favor is candy-coating an assignment, unless it is blatantly in violation of our pilot contract or regulations. “Would you guys be interested in taking the jet from LaGuardia on down to Sarasota, laying over there for the night and deadheading home from there?”

Now they were talking about a sizable chunk of change. Yep, we were down for it. 

Then my first officer said a few words that sealed our fate: “I’ve never been to LaGuardia before.” 

I spent our 82-minute flight to New York’s crown jewel of airports explaining the intricacies and idiosyncrasies that go with landing there. The RNAV approach to the 7,000-foot Runway 31 that snakes around from the Runway 4 extended centerline, loops past Citi Field, and rolls out on a tight-in final approach.

I mentioned how rolling through the intersection on Runway 4 is allowed but frowned upon, effectively making the runway shorter if you want to follow custom. I warned him of the rapid-fire series of radio calls that happen immediately after clearing the runway—first we talk to ground control then to ramp to ensure the gate is actually available, then back to ground. The whole place is basically 20 pounds of poop crammed into a diaper rated for 10 pounds.

We were cleared for the approach and throwing out the landing gear over Queens when a pesky amber caution message popped up: antiskid fail. Now, if you’re on a 25-mile, straight-in approach to an 11,000-foot runway, there’s time to process that. Probably even time to deal with the checklist, run performance numbers for landing with anti-skid inoperative, and still have time for a few last sips of coffee. 

When you’re already this far down our particular approach, there wasn’t a lot of time for anything. “We’re going to have to go around. Let tower know, and we’ll fly the approach as long as they need before breaking it off.” Instructed to continue the approach for the time being, I took a deep breath and told Tom, my first officer, “It’ll be like any go-around in the simulator, just in slower motion. Nothing needs to happen fast.”

Sure enough, tower called the point to go missed with climbout instructions. “Go-around, flaps 13,” I called. He verified our go-around was queuing up and called out positive rate. “Gear up,” I said, quickly followed by “select speed 180 knots, level change to 2,000 feet.” It wasn’t a beautifully crafted maneuver, but it was functional and any instructor in the schoolhouse would have struggled to criticize it.

As we leveled off and headed north, I gave Tom the controls, and I took over the checklists, which directed us to perform the performance calculations and see how much runway we would need. My calculations showed we had more than 2,000 feet to spare if we continued back to LaGuardia, and I had the dispatcher do the same task. Our numbers matched. So did Tom’s calculations, once I completed the checklist and took the controls back. 

It seemed counterintuitive to point the jet back toward one of the most challenging major airports in America, where our fairly short runway would be paired with a gnarly gusting crosswind. But because we were so light with zero passengers or bags aboard, every calculation agreed that we’d have room to spare.

I sent one last message to dispatch and maintenance control: “We’ll land at LGA unless y’all want it parked at JFK or Newark,” giving them a chance to pick where this plane would wind up parked. We could land at KLGA but the performance numbers for takeoff with anti-skid deferred—to bring the plane to a stop from V1, about 140 knots, would be significantly longer than any runway they had. If we landed, the plane would turn into a pumpkin until repairs were made. But dispatch cast its vote for KLGA, so off we went. 

We had been vectored off to the north, and once we indicated we were ready to return, a swing back to the south took us directly over Westchester County Airport (KHPN) at 4,000 feet, then we tracked just to the northeast of LaGuardia, where they turned us to the west, flying over Central Park and heading south down the Hudson River. Approach control was threading the needle between the approach and departure corridors of every major airport—we had flown right over the top of Westchester’s busy Class D, then paralleled the JFK departures, and turned right across KLGA.

As we headed down the Hudson, Newark’s traffic passed off our right wingtip. I’d tried to explain the intricacies of how the arrivals and departures of all three airports were shaped based on each other’s footprint, and here we were nearly upending them all. Heading down the Hudson, we gave Lady Liberty a little wave before being vectored back onto the approach course. 

As we put the gear down, that same message reared its head, but armed with performance numbers and a completed checklist, we canceled the warning, mumbled “as expected,” and continued. At our light weight, with no passengers aboard, we used full reverse thrust per the checklist, and I hardly touched the brakes before we turned off at the normal spot, before the intersection with Runway 4/22. 

“Welcome to LaGuardia, Tom,” I said. “You’ve checked that box now.”