Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Distraction; Situational Awareness
Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Aircraft; Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure; Human Factors
Coming into IAD the errors started when we were intercepting the localizer for Runway 1R. I was the pilot monitoring and the FO (First Officer) was the pilot flying. Approach cleared us to intercept when we were basically already crossing the final approach course so we had to navigate back to the localizer on our own. At the same time we had been getting hit with some minor wake turbulence from the airplane ahead of us which Approach informed us was a Boeing 777. We were then cleared for the visual approach and advised of the caution for wake turbulence and to maintain 170 kts. until 5 miles out. At this time we configured gear down flaps 20. I had just recently had training in the sim for wake turbulence and remembered how dangerous it could be so I advised my FO to use caution and I believe I recommended maybe staying above their path since we had already hit a small portion of their wake prior when we were on downwind. He elected to turn the autopilot off and hand fly slightly above their glide path. We then continued down and around 100 ft. got a terrain warning. Our first reaction was this was because we weren't on glide path and the FO called out; 'visual; landing.' around 50 ft. we got another aural message stating 'too low terrain'; at this point I realized something was wrong and quickly scanned and noticed we were still at flaps 20. At this point I immediately called for a balked landing. The FO restated in a question; balked landing? I said yes and he immediately executed the maneuver. We advised ATC of the go around and they asked for the reasoning and I stated we were unstable. We continued the go around and came back to land on [Runway] 1R after some vectoring without further incident. To add to this and to summarize; we did not complete a landing checklist; we were not fully configured and were at gear down flaps 20 degrees; and our speed bug was still at 170 kts. We received a terrain aural warning that we misinterpreted followed by a second aural warning and executed a balked landing at a medium energy state with lower power setting but high airspeed. Our attention started deviating from standard starting with the poor intercept angle of the localizer. I further complicated the situation by over concentrating on the wake turbulence from the 777 and focusing too much on the FO's glide path and what I would call tunnel focusing on his flying. I believe my statements to him about the wake turbulence also led to distracting him from normal flight operations as well. He was talking through his thought process on staying a half dot high on the glide path and I was responding with statements like I agree; not necessarily breaking sterile cockpit but also causing more distraction on both of our parts. This was the first time that I had not completed a landing checklist. It has made me realize that while being aware of threats like wake turbulence is important; it's even more important to maintain a greater situational awareness and take a step back and not tunnel focus on one threat while other threats could arise. While I am glad we did not try to force a landing. This is a mistake I never thought would be possible or would happen to me. I have definitely learned a lot from this experience.
CRJ-200 Captain reported distractions from possible wake turbulence resulted in failure to fully configure for landing.