The MD83 incident was with Otley Chevin on approach to 14 at Leeds. The lights looked like car headlights at full beam on the hillside road, until the lights suddenly roared properly into view as the MD83 climbed rapidly on finals to clear the chevin then dropped like a lift in freefall to re-gain the approach profile.
Now if we're into late rotations, I do recall an Aviaco DC9-33 headed for Tenerife nearly bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "I've got the localiser" as it departed. That said, and for the sake of balance, some of the British Island Airways One-Eleven 500 departures weren't an awful lot better back in those days.