"Bushy" quite correct. It's interesting to read that there may appear to be two sets of rules for both GA & the Airlines. Whether it be so or not the underlying factor is that whether yr in a GA plane taking off for Eg. from an airport without rwy lighting for whatever reason or in a High Capacity Plane doing the same thing the 'cargo' is exactly the same, mine, yrs & everyone elses life isn't worth any less if their not in a so called higher protected environment as the airlines.
The only differnence to the level of safety of the two diff sectors here (GA & Airlines) is the level of maintenance. Flight decisions should be the same whether it be from a Jumbo jet skipper or a C172 PVT pilot.

CW

If you were less than V1 when the lights went out would you abort?

No.

Statistically, a high speed abort is often more fraught with danger than continuing. Just because the calculated ASDA/ASDR is ok, doesn't, IMHO, mean one should.

Decision Speed
 

My company uses an arbitrary figure of 100 knots, below which we stop for anything that rears its' ugly head. Above this figure and up to V1, which if heavy, could be up to 160+kts, we stop only for something that will really sting us in the ar$e. Lights going out would not be something to stop for above 100. Below 100...... definately.

Say what?!
 

Surely you can't be serious, Capt. Wally? No, I won't call you Shirley.

Average crew (plural) experience
Average age of A/C
Recurrent Training & Checking

Just to name a couple.

Play the ball mate, we don't even know if the allegation is true.

Stationair8

Quote
aulglarse, fully aware of the 800m vis required for a foggy morning.

But to line up at taxiway B YMLT for a departure to the north is probably a bit brave, with the tower not open fortunately something was said by somebody and the aircraft backtracked and departed from the threshold of 32Un Quote

It is standard SOP to back track the runway in those conditions and with no Twr.

Back to the Areoclub.

the real problem is not being investigated!
 

I will go as far as to say that a take-off in a large aircraft without runway lights is not that uncommon. I have seen it occur at least twice.

With the very effective lights fitted to aircraft these days the absence of runway lights would not be difficult to overlook.

In the two cases I saw, both crews were not aware the runway lights were off during their departure until advised the next day. So one must ask, how many times does it occur with no witnesses on the ground ?? A lot more than most of us would estimate??

A couple of simple questions.
How many different type of PAL systems now exist in Australia?
What techniques are involved in the activation of these systems?
Until recently what was published in Qantas manuals reference activation of a PAL system, did they even mention the new system?
The flashing windsock lights to warn of impending PAL cycle ending, which windsock should this be?
Which windsock is shown as the primary windsock at YMLT on JEPP charts?
At YMLT which windsock actually flashes at the end of the PAL cycle and what colour is it ?

Does anyone now think the system may just be a fault here and not the pilots?:eek:

Triadic,

Have you been to Launy in the dark? I don't care how good the a/c lights are mate, LT is " the black hole of calcutta" at night. Blind Freddy would know the lights weren't on(if this was actually the case) down there.

Just MHO but basic airmanship would dictate that the PAL/PCL would be activated or cycled before calling Centre for IFR traffic and taxiing.

In the good old days of the AFAP, a directive would have been issued to all Pilots, not to operate in and out of this particular airport unless the lights were manually switched on by an agent on the ground. This directtive would be withdrawn only after the ongoing problems of radio switching and warnings was sorted out.
No fare paying passenger could argue with that, and in fact would demand it.
The QF incident, six years ago is ongoing and I would venture to say the legal fees involved would not be cheap. I would assume this latest incident will attract the same angle of prosecution.

Leaving the lights on 24/7 until fixed would be a cheaper option.

So, since there is no direction from either the AFAP and AIPA on this issue I would suggest Pilots use some commonsense when operating into and out of this airport and not leave themselves open to criticism/prosecution to this perceived unreliable lighting arrangement.

Normasars:

Yes, many times, but I believe you miss my point in the effectiveness of the landing lights on modern large aircraft... it is close to daylight in front of the a/c and I am therefore suggesting that it would not be that hard to miss it if the lights were in fact not on, given other possible workload issues that occur around that point.

Mind you, I do believe there should be appropriate procedures in place for such locations where the pilots must activate the lights, and of course they must in such cases be followed. It is a fact of life that RPT jet pilots do not get that much exposure to such locations or procedures, which only increases the chances of such an occurrence.

The bottom line of my post is that I don't believe we are dealing with an occurrence that is isolated or rare, but in fact takes place more often than we might think. We must look at the system and procedures and not knee-jerk by blaming the pilots!

:sad:

"HJ" I stand by my statement "The only differnence to the level of safety of the two diff sectors here (GA & Airlines) is the level of maintenance."

The reason is because of things like CFIT for Eg. it's very real & the following (yr statement) means zip !

Average crew (plural) experience
Average age of A/C
Recurrent Training & Checking

You can have all the proceedures under the sun to make flying safer as the airlines strive to achieve but as we have seen such as the Eg. of T/Off without rwy lights it can boil down to no more than the Level of maint. that's safer not the type or class of pilot!

Call me 'Shirley' if you wish just never call me late:E


CW

Triadic,

Mate, if ANYONE taxied out of the RPT apron at night in LT without PAL ie no taxi leadout lighting and the rest to either HDG PT(ie 14R or 32L) and HOLD SHORT LIGHTS!!), then I am sorry YOU ARE BLIND. It is "darker than Kamahl" mate.

I stand by my statement that Blind Freddy would notice that there were NO LIGHTS ON.

PS I know exactly how good the lights are on modern a/c and it would not make one bit of difference.

But the rest of your post I agree too.

So an interesting CRM issue,

1.the aircraft is dispatched by an engineer surely he would have said something prior to pulling the connection to the aircraft.

2. if the aircraft departed from Rwy 32 it would have taxied past the Fire Station Tower, now surely they could have called up the aircraft on the Ctaf frequency, or contacted Jetstar and got them to call the crew. Would have been to bad if the aircraft had a problem and needed the fire crew obviously they were to busy doing whatever firies do when you are at work.

3. where was the aerodrome safety officer asleep or having a feed or didn't give a f@#k

4. Did the crew activate the lights and then there been a power failure and the lights have cycled off,did the tower switch the lights over to the AFRU system when they went home?

Great to see that an airport that has 1,000,000 pax a year has a control tower that closes at 9.00 pm or even earlier when they can't staff it, airport fire service that takes no notice of whats going on the aerodrome, "hey Fred whats that glowing in the dark at the end of the airstrip", "dunno Barry I am watching Home and Away", must be a great little cash cow for Air Services Australia !!!!!

Perhaps the Virgin, Jetstar, Flying Doc, charter and night freight people that operate into YMLT after the tower is shut should call the aerodrome safety officer up and get him to activate the lights for your arrival, likewise for your departure and also get him to do a runway inspection prior to your arrival and departure after all it is up to us as pilots to cover all bases and our arses and that way their can be no arguments in relation to the lights being on.

Would fellow Ppruners agree?

Might have been the same firies and airport safety officer who witnessed the Qantas 737 take off in the dark as well and replied when asked, I saw nothing, I know nothing and that's a fact !

Sounds like a bit of a carbon copy of the Qantas incident to me. Next there will be an accident because of this issue at Launceston.

Simple and very easy fix to all of this, "LEAVE THE TOWER OPEN 24/7" as it was before, if it costs more so well beit. I'm sure the average passenger wouldn't mind paying an extra couple of bucks to have the tower and RFF available during abnormal hours if they knew it may save there lives in the event of an accident.

CRM issue ? This is a classic Swiss Cheese model just waiting for all the holes to line up !

Statisticly Australia is due for a major hull loss, and Launceston just might be the place in the middle of the night due to the runway lights not being on !

Of course, because of our blame culture, we couldn't possibly consider that the lights went out during backtrack or line up, and because of the high intensity landing lights mentioned above, it wasn't noticed.

As an interesting side note, on the ATSB weekly report (week ending 22 Feb, page 8) there is an item from Melbourne where the runway lights extinguished for 5 seconds on a 737s landing roll.

Charlie

Also page 20 on the weekly report has the runway lights failing in Cairns for an aircraft on final.

Charlie :confused: