Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument
Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Conflict Ground Conflict; Less Severe; Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Human Factors; Procedure
We were on a 6 mile final when tower cleared a Cirrus to land in front of us. When this happened separation from the traffic began to decrease; tower then cleared the Cirrus for a low approach. This seemed to cause confusion in the Cirrus cockpit. We continued until the spacing was unsafe; the Cirrus appeared to be on the runway. At around 400 ft. we executed a go around. As we began to climb at go around thrust flaps 8 the Cirrus began to climb as well giving us a TA and tower asked us to side step to the right. I began a turn to the right as the pilot monitoring watched the traffic below us carefully. While our focus was on avoiding the traffic we neglected to call 'positive rate' and raise the gear. This led to a delay is raising the flaps form 8 to 0 to clean up the airplane. Since we were already at pattern altitude we made the decision to leave the gear down since we were moments away from needing to lower it again. Towers poor spacing was the initial cause of the event. However our focus on keeping visual separation from the traffic led us to neglect some of our duties. Although traffic avoidance was and should be our top priority in that situation. We could have called a go around earlier when we saw that there could be a potential conflict. This would have given us more time and led to less task saturation.
While on about a six mile final tower cleared a Cirrus to perform a short approach to a touch and go in front of us. As we continued the rate of closure was greater than tower anticipated and tower changed the Cirrus clearance to a low approach only. We continued our approach until about 400 ft. AGL. At this time it appeared the Cirrus did a touch and go and was on the runway for a long time. I felt that the separation margin was too small and called for a go around. We completed the first portion of the go around but then the Cirrus had started his upwind and was directly in our path. We prioritized maintaining visual separation with the Cirrus and complying with ATC separation instructions and failed to bring gear up and do a climb sequence until we were on a downwind and ran the after takeoff and then another decent check. After this we completed all check lists and had a safe landing. Poor aircraft separation by ATC. It sounded like there were two controllers in the tower; one being trained and the other a supervisor. Waiting too long to call for the go around. We waited until a go around caused too much going on and made us miss checklists and call outs due to high work load. Misinterpreted instructions by the Cirrus. When ATC changed the landing clearance for the Cirrus it was unclear if they understood what ATC actually wanted. I think the biggest thing that could be done to avoid similar situations is to call for a go around earlier when we saw there might be a conflict with spacing. There were cues earlier in the approach indicating a potential for loss of separation; but it was also possible for us to land had the Cirrus followed instructions in a timely manner. We should have erred on the conservative side to not put us in an overloaded task situation.
CRJ-200 flight crew reported failing to retract landing gear during a go around due to ATC vectored traffic.