Shane McLeod for AM, ABC
An air safety investigation has been launched after a Qantas jet made its approach to land at the nation's busiest airport without deploying its landing gear.
The pilots apparently noticed their oversight less than 300 metres above the ground.
The airline has stood down the two pilots pending the safety investigation.
Are you nervous of flying because of recent plane incidents? Leave your comments below.
The Qantas 767 was on a morning flight from Melbourne as it came in to land at Sydney airport last Monday.
Once the error was realised, the pilots returned power to the engines and regained altitude, before circling and successfully landing.
But how they came so close to trying to land their jet without being ready to do so is now the subject of a serious incident investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
Qantas has released a statement, agreeing it was a serious incident.
"This is an extremely rare event but one we have taken seriously," the statement said.
"The flight crew knew all required procedures but there was a brief communications breakdown. They responded quickly to the situation and instigated a go-around. The cockpit alert coincided with their actions."
The cockpit alert was an audible warning from the ground proximity warning system.
The airline says there was no issue of flight safety and it is fully cooperating with the investigation.
The president of the Australian and International Pilots Association that represents Qantas flight crew, Captain Barry Jackson, says coming in to land is when pilots are at their busiest.
"You're dealing with air traffic, you're dealing with slowing the aircraft down, configuration changes, changing frequencies, all those things," he said.
Mr Jackson says pilots welcome the investigation, to work out what went wrong and how to avoid similar problems happening again.
"It's very serious if the enhanced warning system is activated," he said.
"It's designed to go off when an aircraft is close to the ground and it's not configured for landing, it's designed for that. And so therefore it's done its job.
"I can't comment on the detail. The pilots have been stood down while an investigation takes place, the proper investigation process will take place, will find out the facts, then we'll start to ask the questions how the pilots got there and obviously deal with that as it comes up."
Mr Jackson says it is hard to speculate on the key areas the investigation will need to focus on.
"I believe the go-around was attempted a little bit higher than the altitude that the warning went off," he said.
"I don't know if they actually started to climb straight away because usually when you do a go-around you select the go-around switches. The aeroplane will climb rapidly and if for some reason it's continued to a lower altitude before it's gone around and that warning has been set off."
The pilots apparently noticed their oversight less than 300 metres above the ground.
The airline has stood down the two pilots pending the safety investigation.
Are you nervous of flying because of recent plane incidents? Leave your comments below.
The Qantas 767 was on a morning flight from Melbourne as it came in to land at Sydney airport last Monday.
Once the error was realised, the pilots returned power to the engines and regained altitude, before circling and successfully landing.
But how they came so close to trying to land their jet without being ready to do so is now the subject of a serious incident investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
Qantas has released a statement, agreeing it was a serious incident.
"This is an extremely rare event but one we have taken seriously," the statement said.
"The flight crew knew all required procedures but there was a brief communications breakdown. They responded quickly to the situation and instigated a go-around. The cockpit alert coincided with their actions."
The cockpit alert was an audible warning from the ground proximity warning system.
The airline says there was no issue of flight safety and it is fully cooperating with the investigation.
The president of the Australian and International Pilots Association that represents Qantas flight crew, Captain Barry Jackson, says coming in to land is when pilots are at their busiest.
"You're dealing with air traffic, you're dealing with slowing the aircraft down, configuration changes, changing frequencies, all those things," he said.
Mr Jackson says pilots welcome the investigation, to work out what went wrong and how to avoid similar problems happening again.
"It's very serious if the enhanced warning system is activated," he said.
"It's designed to go off when an aircraft is close to the ground and it's not configured for landing, it's designed for that. And so therefore it's done its job.
"I can't comment on the detail. The pilots have been stood down while an investigation takes place, the proper investigation process will take place, will find out the facts, then we'll start to ask the questions how the pilots got there and obviously deal with that as it comes up."
Mr Jackson says it is hard to speculate on the key areas the investigation will need to focus on.
"I believe the go-around was attempted a little bit higher than the altitude that the warning went off," he said.
"I don't know if they actually started to climb straight away because usually when you do a go-around you select the go-around switches. The aeroplane will climb rapidly and if for some reason it's continued to a lower altitude before it's gone around and that warning has been set off."
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