Three Go-Arounds and a Refused Diversion: Three Ways to Keep Making Decisions Under Pressure
A new AAIB report walks through a 737 crew’s three wind shear escapes, a diversion refused in error, and a landing with a third of their final reserve fuel. Here’s what that sequence teaches pilots, what flight schools can build from it, and how any pilot can get unstuck when the next decision won’t come.
On October 3, 2025, a Malta Air Boeing 737-800 flying for Ryanair left Pisa for Glasgow Prestwick with 171 passengers, six crew, and extra fuel on board for the storm forecast over Scotland. At Prestwick, the crew flew two wind shear escape maneuvers that turned into go-arounds. They asked to divert to Manchester and were told no, so they headed for Edinburgh, where a third wind shear event forced another escape. They declared a fuel emergency, turned for Manchester with a Mayday call, and landed at 19:13 with 363 kg of fuel against a final reserve of 1,100 kg.
The UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch published its report on September 24, 2026. It found that the Manchester refusal came from a communication breakdown inside the airport, where policy said the diversion should have been accepted when capacity allowed, and that another go-around was unlikely to have been possible on the fuel remaining. Manchester Airport has since reinforced its diversion procedures. The refusal started on the ground; the crew had to keep making decisions in the air around it.
Why a Refused Alternate Hits Harder Than the Weather
A backup plan does emotional work before it ever gets used. Once you’ve picked your alternate, part of your brain relaxes, because there’s a way out. When that alternate says “unable,” you lose the option and the relief it was carrying, often in the same moment the workload peaks.
Stress narrows attention and shrinks working memory. Under that load, pilots tend to go one of two ways: They rush the next choice to make the discomfort stop, or they freeze and reweigh every option looking for the one that feels safe. Both burn the resource you can least afford, whether that’s fuel, daylight, or the examiner’s patience. The moves below target that moment.
Move One: Decide on the Fuel You Have (Pilots)
The plan you briefed is gone, so the first job is to stop flying it in your head. A short, spoken reset gets you back to the situation you’re actually in. It takes seconds, and it works in a Cessna 172 on a cross-country as well as it does on a line trip:
- Say what changed in one sentence, out loud: “Our alternate is unable; we have 40 minutes of fuel.”
- Name the one number that limits every option: Fuel, daylight, or weather minimums
- Pick the best option available right now and commit to it, even if it isn’t the one you wanted
- Set the trigger that would change it again (“If this approach goes missed, we go to X”), so the next decision is already half made
That last step is the one most pilots skip. Deciding in advance what would make you change course means a second surprise meets a plan instead of a blank.
Move Two: Train the Reset (Flight School Owners)
Most training builds the maneuver and trusts the student to handle the surprise. Students get plenty of practice flying an approach and very little practice recovering when the plan around it collapses. Your CFIs can change that without adding hours to the syllabus:
Brief the refused alternate. On a cross-country or instrument lesson, have the CFI make the planned diversion airport unavailable mid-flight. The point isn’t to trick the student; it’s to give them a rep of choosing again under load while an instructor is sitting right there.
Debrief the decision, not just the outcome. Ask how long it took to commit, what the student said out loud, and what they were weighing while they hesitated. A good landing after a two-minute freeze is still a finding worth talking about.
Make “unable” a normal word. When students hear plan changes every week, a checkride curveball reads as familiar instead of as a sign that something has gone wrong.
This is where I come in for schools. Through Checkride Prep Clinics and CFI workshops, I help your team rehearse the refused-plan moment on the ground, teach instructors to tell a student who’s thinking from a student who’s frozen, and give everyone a shared reset language to use in the aircraft. I also offer ongoing confidential support for the students who need more than a clinic.
A go-around resets the approach. The pilot needs a reset too, and that one can be practiced on the ground long before it’s needed.
Move Three: Break the Analysis Loop (Every Pilot)
Your refused diversion might be weather closing in at your alternate on a personal cross-country, a controller amending your clearance twice in five minutes, or, for a student, an examiner closing the airport you just picked. What happens next for a lot of pilots, at every certificate level, is a loop: You weigh option A, then B, then back to A, looking for the choice that can’t be wrong. It feels like being careful. From the outside, it looks like hesitation, and the aircraft keeps moving the whole time.
Analysis paralysis is especially common in pilots who plan every detail, from first-solo students to experienced captains, because the plan was doing a lot of the emotional heavy lifting. Three things help break it:
Give yourself a deadline. Pick the best option you have within a count of ten, then refine it once you’re flying it.
Think out loud. Saying your reasoning to your crew, your passenger, ATC, or your examiner turns a silent spiral into a decision someone can see and respond to. On a checkride, it also shows the examiner your judgment, which is what they’re evaluating.
Separate “I don’t know” from “I’m afraid to pick.” The first calls for more information. The second calls for a commitment, and more information won’t fix it.
This is the work I do with pilots one-on-one, whether you’re a student or have thousands of hours. Together we find the moments where you lock up, figure out what your brain is trying to protect you from, and build a reset you can use in the aircraft and on checkride day. It’s confidential and it doesn’t touch your medical.
Details here come from reporting on the AAIB report published September 24, 2026.
Pilots and students, if you lock up when a flight, lesson, or checkride goes off-script, let’s build your reset together. Flight school owners, if you want your students and CFIs rehearsing this before it shows up on a stage check, let’s talk about a clinic for your team. The first call is free and confidential.
Book a confidential call →One thing to try this week: Brief a lesson where the diversion airport says no, and time how long it takes to pick the next one.
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