Plain answers
What is a go-around?
The aircraft was about to land, the engines roared, and it climbed away instead. That is a go-around: a maneuver the crew briefed before the approach began, flown exactly as practiced. It feels like a scare. It is the opposite: a landing the crew politely declined because it was not perfect.
Briefed before every approach
Crews state the go-around plan out loud before every landing: the climb power, the pitch, the altitude to fly to, who does what. The FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C, ch. 8) presents the go-around as part of the normal landing sequence, because a landing is only ever an approach that stayed stable all the way down.
The stable-approach rule
Airlines fly by stabilized-approach criteria: by a set height, the aircraft must be on speed, on path, and configured, or the crew goes around, no debate, no blame. The Flight Safety Foundation's approach-and-landing work, which the FAA incorporates in its guidance (AC 91-79B), is explicit that going around is the correct response to an unstable approach, and airline safety programs treat it exactly that way.
What it usually means
The runway was not free yet. A gust arrived at the wrong second. Spacing behind the previous arrival got tight. The crew wanted a better setup. None of these are aircraft problems, and the second approach lands normally. The sensations you feel, full power, a firm pitch up, flaps and gear cycling, are the same ones described phase by phase on every flight page here, each cited to the FAA's training texts.
Sources: FAA Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3C ch. 8 (go-around procedure); FAA AC 91-79B (stabilized approaches). Checked 2026-08.