Runway Lights

[pilotjc]

The other night one of our aircraft, a Falcon 900B on a VFR part 91 flight was cleared to land on a runway where the runway lights were out of service. The control tower issued a landing clearance with land at your own risk. The crew could clearly see the runway and landed. Did they violate any regulations?

 

[bigD]

AFAIK, there's no reg in Part 91 that prohibits it, and have met several pilots that insist that it's perfectly fine, and they do it all the time.

Personally, I'd worry about some FAA dude getting up on the wrong side of the bed and hitting me with 91.13 just to be an @sshole.

 

[100-1/2]

Ops Specs

Many 135 Operators have limitations and airfield use requirements that usually mirror 135 Regs or are found to be very close with minimal deviations permitting ops into airports under special cirsumstances provided a list of criteria are satisfied. If this was in fact a 135 operator's aircraft conducting a flight according to part 91 requrements or terminating an IFR flight under VFR conditions after cancelling an IFR clearance while airborne, this would likely have been a bust. Ops Specs are often overlooked when conducting many operations under flexible guidlines allotted in part 91. Whenever you attach an air carrier certificate I.D. to an aircraft your OPS SPECS generate specific operation limitations that fall somewhere between Part 91 and Part 135 with neither being the absolute rule.

If it was a Part 91 aircraft, I would have to agree with the previous post and wonder, just how much time was saved utilizing the unlit runway as opposed to squaring-off a 3 mile left or right base for an illuminated alternative?

150 knots in the dark, engines at just above flight idle, there is no way they could spool-up in time to safely abort the landing should an obstacle be encountered. Careless and Reckless. period. nuff said. This type of behavior exposes all of us to increased losses, claims and premiums. Probably some 50+something, semi-retired, hot-dog working on a third career just for fun because he has all kinds of time and type-ratings that rake in 6 figures to pull this kind of stunt to save 2 minutes on the taxi to the hangar. I wonder if the owner of the aircraft has any clue to the occurance of this kind of judgement in his front office and/or the depth of the risk as a result of that highly compensated and safety driven professional in charge of his /her life and their $50 million assett?

a very dissapointed,
100-1/2

 

[rice]

Settle down Francis!!!!!

To begin,I'm in totalagreement with you WRT part 135 opspecs. Now lets assume this was a part 91 flight for the sake of argument. While I agree that there may have been better/other choices the crew could have made, niether of us were there and there are other considerations as well.
But first a little constructive criticism, a DA-900B is about half as costly as you state (about $25 mil), if ref was 150 kts he's got bigger probs than no runway lights (typical ref speeds are around 120 give or take), would another runway choice exceeded his max tailwind component or max demonstrated crosswind, and if the engines (theres 3 of 'em) were at flight idle, he would be at 30' AGL or less and runway lights aint gonna help you from hitting something at that point.
Now I'm not saying that "sure, we do it all the time" is the prudent way to conduct business but it is in no way automatically considered "careless and reckless". In fact if it was conducted as a properly briefed approach it was probably a great training opportunity for when the lights inadvertently go out on short final at some uncontrolled field.
Lastly, I don't know you and you might be a great guy/pilot but please don't admonish others without knowing all the facts and quit practicing for your FSDO interview by applying your arbitrary view that just because you wouldn't do it, it must be careless and reckless.

 

[OtterFO]

Under Part 91 I don't see a no runway light landing violating any regs. I've done it a couple of times on grass runways with a car at each end. BTW this really sucks in a taildrager that you can't see over the nose on.

Under 135, my company's opspecs and FOM allow for Alternate Lighting. How it's worded leaves it up to the discression of the pilot. I've landed on ice strips where they used the yellow road construction markers as runway lights. I've also used road flares to mark one edge of a runway. A friend of mine was doing a medivac with a king air in some hediously cold temps -50 and colder. The village power plant had failed and the villagers used their snow go's to light the runway enough to get in and out.

As for the "land at your own risk" statement. Any time a helicopter lands on a surface other than an active runway, ATC uses that phrase. I've landed on a taxiway when a disabled aircraft had the only runway closed, ATC used that phrase. Basically it's ATC's way of obsolving themselves from liability when you do something that is out of the norm.

 

[h25b]

I would guess there's nothing prohibiting that under PART 91. Personally, I wouldn't... As for 91.13 it usually only applies when an incident or accident has occurred. As for operational considerations favoring this kind of operation, there's been very few times where I've been on approach somehere when there were no other airports in the area as another option albeit possibly out of the way for the pax. I guess I would just rather go somewhere else than try and come up with a reasonable sounding answer to the "why weren't the runway lights on?" question that someone in the back would ask. Everyone's different, I'm sure they had good reason to... At least I hope they did...

 

[501261]

I don't think there is anything wrong with it. Still might be a good excuse to dust off the old Nasa form and send off a letter to Moffet field.

 

[Computer Geek]

Its allowed in my 121 ops manual if in the opinion of the PIC he can make a safe landing ... and it must be VFR

If Runway edge lights are out of service:
a) CAT II/III operations are Not authorized
b) Day VMC No lights required and 1000-3sm
c) Night VMC Approach lights and 1000 – 3sm
d) Day IMC Precision app. 200- ½ (2400 RVR) Approach lights required
e) Day IMC Non-Precision app. 250- ¾ (4000 RVR) Approach lights required
f) Night IMC Not Authorized