Air carrier B737 crew reported a low airspeed condition when the Captain was not aware the autopilot disconnected during a go around procedure. First Officer identified the slow energy state; called it out; and the Captain recovered the aircraft and safely completed the go around.
Synopsis
Air carrier B737 crew reported a low airspeed condition when the Captain was not aware the autopilot disconnected during a go around procedure. First Officer identified the slow energy state; called it out; and the Captain recovered the aircraft and safely completed the go around.
Narrative
While conducting an ILS CAT2 autoland to Runway XL; the visibility dropped below minimums just outside the FAF. We executed a missed approach; but due to the autopilot not having entered its dual channel mode; the autopilot disconnected. The Captain believed that the horn sounding was due to the autothrottle disconnecting; but it had remained on. As the Captain increased power; overriding the autothrottle; the nose pitched up on its own to a pitch attitude near 15 degrees nose up. I did not see that the Captain was not actively manipulating the control column; and we ran the normal callouts; but the Captain became confused with the aircraft state; believing we were getting slow. The Captain began reducing the thrust against the autothrottle; decreasing our airspeed to just below the amber band. I was attempting to communicate to the Captain that we were slow and we needed to pitch down; but he disagreed. When the 'Airspeed Low' aural warning sounded; I called out UPSET; PUSH; and that seemed to make the Captain realize the aircraft state. The Captain then realized the autopilot was not engaged and took manual control; lowering the nose to a safe attitude. We recovered with no further issues and landed in ZZZ on a different runway.
Second reporter narrative
ILS Cat 2 to [Runway] XL. We had gone around once before at Tower's direction due to spacing. We executed a go around at the FAF due to the RVR going below mins before we got there. Upon hitting TOGA; the auto throttles kicked off; which I did not expect at the time. As we were climbing and bringing the flaps up; I turned the auto throttle back on. The throttles advanced and we started accelerating faster than I wanted; I manually pulled them back and the FO (First Officer) said to watch the speed. We then went from getting fast to getting slow and the FO made an excellent upset with a push call. This recaged my brain and I got back into the attitude indicator to push to an appropriate pitch to start accelerating again; while ensuring the throttles were forward. We leveled off without further incident and continued. Looking back; I did not realize that the autopilot had also kicked off at TOGA. On reflection this makes sense as we were still in single channel mode due to the altitude. Especially since we had already done a go-around where the automation stayed on; I had it in my mind that this one would be the same.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.