pilot apprentice --
Used them? Not deliberately, but they have certainly helped me. No way to know for sure if the extra second(s) was the difference but I'm glad I had it!
Yup, I can relate to that but hand on heart, were you somewhere where you shouldn't have been? Off track for any reason, 'excusable' or just plain 'error' - we ALL make errors imo and the biggest risk is to be in denial of that to ourselves. Presumably someone didn't build a tower block between your takeoff and your near-miss?
You planned your route and using whatever nav system - visual or electronic - you gave yourself an appropriate margin left and right, and terrain clearance. So the very fact you were presented with those lights is a wake up call. You didn't plan it right, your instruments were wrong, you lost attention, the charts were wrong.... and so on. Which is not a personal criticism, if you're human we're in the same tribe
