Pearson Accountability Alliance

2026 Go-Arounds at Toronto Pearson: Community Evidence Log Rolling year

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What are go-arounds?

A go-around is when a pilot abandons a landing at the last moment and climbs away instead of touching down. You may see or hear it as an aircraft that seems about to land, then suddenly powers up, climbs, and “goes around” for another try.

Go-arounds are a standard safety procedure and are part of normal airline operations. Pilots are trained to initiate a go-around whenever something about the approach, the runway, or nearby traffic does not look or feel safe enough to continue the landing.

Common reasons include:

• Unstable approach (too fast, too high, not properly lined up)
• Sudden change in wind or visibility
• An aircraft, vehicle, or animal still on the runway
• Air traffic control spacing issues with other aircraft
• Technical or cockpit concerns that make a conservative decision safer

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Why track them?

It is important to be clear:
Not every go-around is a “near miss” or a narrowly avoided collision.
Most are pilots and controllers doing the right thing—choosing a conservative option rather than forcing a marginal landing.

However, go-arounds still matter for several reasons:

• They usually happen at low altitude, when everyone’s workload is high and there is less room for error.
• They can reflect underlying problems: congestion, runway occupancy, aggressive scheduling, or procedure design.
• They create additional noise and fuel burn over the communities below.
• In some cases, the same conditions that trigger a go-around (poor spacing, runway conflicts, confusion on frequency) could, if not managed correctly, lead to serious incidents or tragedy.

By documenting every recorded go-around at Toronto Pearson—date, time, runway, aircraft type, and where possible a radar screenshot—this project is not claiming that each event was unsafe on its own. Instead, it:

• Shows how often these high-workload, high-risk moments occur,
• Helps identify patterns (time of day, runway, traffic configuration), and
• Provides an independent evidence base for communities, regulators, and investigators to ask whether current traffic levels and procedures are as safe and responsible as they should be.

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How to read the go-around tables

Each row in the tables below represents one recorded go-around event at Toronto Pearson in 2026. These are the columns you’ll see:

• Event # – A simple counter for that month (Event 1, 2, 3…).
• Date/Time (Local) – When the go-around occurred, shown in local time.
• Dep/Arr – Whether the aircraft was departing (D) or arriving (A) (blank if unknown).
• Aircraft Type – The aircraft model (e.g., B38M, A320, GL5T).
• Runway – The runway in use at the time (e.g., 05, 06R, 23, 24L).
• Screenshot – Link to a radar screenshot.

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For broader issues with how Pearson’s noise and complaints are recorded, see our page on Noise Monitoring Failures & Data Integrity at Toronto Pearson Airport .

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2026 Go-Around Tables

This is a rolling log. New months will be added as community records are compiled.