Air carrier flight crew reported a critical ground conflict while on short-final approach due to an aircraft crossing runway. Flight executed a safe go around.
Synopsis
Air carrier flight crew reported a critical ground conflict while on short-final approach due to an aircraft crossing runway. Flight executed a safe go around.
Narrative
Short-final landing in ZZZ. Our aircraft was clear to land and under 500 feet when an aircraft holding short of our landing runway (Runway XX) was presumably cleared to cross Runway XX and Runway XY on Taxiway XX. At our adjusted minimums (310 feet) auto callout; the conflicting aircraft was not clear of the landing runway and the flight crew initiated a go-around. Go-around was called by the Pilot Monitoring (PM) (myself) and executed per company procedures and complied with all published and ATC instructions. As our crew was monitoring tower; and not ground; we cannot know what was ordered of the aircraft causing an imminent runway incursion; but we would like to know why Ground may have cleared an aircraft to cross in a potentially dangerous phase of flight.I understand ZZZ is very busy; and they conduct an impossible operation on an unreasonably small area of real-estate; but if a go around was not called by the flight crew a runway incursion would most likely have occurred. That would be unacceptable. My suggestion is that ZZZ stop crossing traffic using such small margins of safety.
Second reporter narrative
The background setting of this event was that ZZZ had just experienced a brief ground stop which caused a high level of congestion both on the ground and in the air. During this flight we executed a go around on short final due to traffic crossing the runway in front of us. We were flying the Visual for Runway XX and were already cleared for the approach and cleared to land. At approximately 300-400 feet on about a 1 mile final; the Captain (CA) noticed that there was an aircraft taxiing across the south end of the runway (XY or XX Taxiway). The Captain noticed this traffic first and promptly called a go around which we executed without issue. We made left traffic and returned for a landing on Runway XX. My suggestion would be for air traffic control to be a bit more conservative with runway crossings due to the time it takes for some aircraft get forward momentum from a stop while taxiing.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.