During every pilots’ recurring Emergency Procedures evaluation (whether in a simulator or in a table-top with an instructor), there comes a point where the evaluator needs to make the pilot “go around,” or wave off the landing, in order to observe the required “single-engine go around” or equivalent emergency go-around.  This might take an extreme situation, because a pilot in an emergency would have wide latitude to land even if, for example, the control tower told him not to.

Unless, of course, there’s a busload of nuns on the runway.  It never fails, after you’ve shut down an engine that was on fire and are on short final, with every fiber in your being preparing to land, tower says “Go around, a busload of nuns is on the runway.”  (One sim instructor even figured out a way to make what looked like a bus appear on the runway.)

While a pilot might argue with some restrictions (if told “Go around, coyote observed on the runway…” a pilot in an emergency might choose to land anyway), there’s just no way to argue with a busload of nuns.

So Sister Sarah apparently pulls the Greyhound onto the CMA and tower says “go around.”  You execute the appropriate procedures and finish the EP sim.

It turns out, though, the busload of nuns isn’t always proverbial. Apparently, an actual busload of nuns was on a cross-country trek recently in protest of a proposed Republican budget. 

Fortunately, there’s no indication they drove onto any runways.  But you never know.