Clicking on the runway lights at a small airport – (accident related)

I usually turn on the PCL if the cloudbase and Vis are not great , even if it is still VFR. Here in Ohio the summer haze can make spotting the runway a little challenging at times. Turning on the lights can act as an attention getter.. your eyes are attracted to a sudden change (caused by the lights coming on) and you instantly can locate the airport. King Air equipment can range from basic to very advanced. All that I have flown are equipped with a minimum of 2 coms radios, 2 Nav radios, transponder, radar, autopilot,flight director and GPS. The King Air’s I am fortunate enough to fly also have Weather uplink (very nice to have), TCAD for traffic awareness and TAWS (also nice to have when shooting an IFR approach in the Appalachian mountain range, which we do often).

1) Is it normal to turn on the runway lights for a daytime landing with decent visibility (4 -5 miles below the 700ft agl cloud cover)?

In decent visibility it isn’t. However in the case of this particular accident, the visibility was anything but. The NTSB estimates visibility to have been around 3 to 4 Statute Miles in Mist and light snow. The Cloud Base varied between 400 and 700 feet overcast (bear in mind that the lowest permitted descent on this particular VOR approach was 471 feet AGL). Under such circumstances, operating pilot controlled lighting would have been perfectly normal.

2) At what stage in a flight would a pilot normally turn the lights on, before of after spotting the runway? Might a pilot turn on the lights if they were having difficulty locating the airport (the pilot had only flown to that airport 3 or 4 times, there were problems with the VOR and the plane was about 7 degrees off track).

Lights are an aid to acquiring the runway visually. As such, there is little point in turning the lights on after the runway is in sight. PCL are normally activated when the pilot is handed by the Approach Controller to the UNICOM/CTAF/MULTICOM frequency for the landing airport. This normally occurs on or just before the aircraft reaches the initial approach fix and is cleared for the approach. In the case of the aircraft you are interested in, it happened when the Approach Controller had vectored the aircraft onto the final approach track of the VOR approach. This is normal for radar-assisted approaches.

All of this relates to Instrument (IFR) operations, rather than visual (VFR) flying. As such, there is no question of “having difficulty locating the airport”. Either you are on the approach, or you aren’t. In this instance, the pilots failed to establish correctly onto the final approach track. There were no VOR problems that were material to the accident.

3) I assume that in order to “click on” the runway lights at Eveleth Airport one of the pilots would have to have switched the radio which had previously been set for the Duluth tower to Eveleth’s frequency, is that correct?

Yes (although approaching aircraft talk to Duluth Approach, not Tower). However the PCL frequency is the same as the UNICOM frequency for the airport, so the PCL would have been activated on handover from the approach sector in the normal way, making the whole 1 radio or 2 radios debate pointless.

Additionally, anybody fleetingly familiar with King Airs will appreciate that such an aircraft always carries at least 2 VHF radios and never carries a CVR or FDR. It has nothing to do with the operator being “unable to afford a Black Box”.

Please indicate whether or not you are a pilot.

That’s what it says on my licence. I’ve even been known to fly a King Air from time to time.

IIRC, pilot operated runway lights in the US operate as Melvyn states i.e. after 7 clicks. Don’t know what is supposed to be in France. Tried to get the lights at Valencia(?) to operate when I really needed them. No luck. Anybody know the answer? Might help next time i’m that way.

camlobe
(poor excuse for a pilot)

I think Moggy was trying to say that the King Air would probably have had 2 VHF Comm radios on board regardless of the regulations that says it has to have a minimum of 1 and 2 headsets etc etc ( I am not up to speed with FAA regulations )

2 radios too expensive?

Melvin has just about covered it.

I think if I was having difficulty spotting a field I’d use every aid I could to its location.

They may not have ‘switched’ frequency as such. A King Air would almost certainly have two comms sets so it could have been a question of switching radios rather than frequency (Small point, but you might have been considering the distraction of dialling in a frequency?)

Moggy (pilot)

I’m not sure about the 2 radios FAA regulations mandated it have 2 headsets (or a headset and a separate speaker and mike) but only 1 transmitter. 2 transmitters are only required on turbojets that carry >10 PAX. The company didn’t buy “black boxes” because they were “too expensive”.

Len

EDITED – To fix mistakes in the last sentence

1) Is it normal to turn on the runway lights for a daytime landing with decent visibility (4 -5 miles below the 700ft agl cloud cover)?

2) At what stage in a flight would a pilot normally turn the lights on, before of after spotting the runway? Might a pilot turn on the lights if they were having difficulty locating the airport (the pilot had only flown to that airport 3 or 4 times, there were problems with the VOR and the plane was about 7 degrees off track).

3) I assume that in order to “click on” the runway lights at Eveleth Airport one of the pilots would have to have switched the radio which had previously been set for the Duluth tower to Eveleth’s frequency, is that correct?

Please indicate whether or not you are a pilot.

Len

Melvin has just about covered it.

I think if I was having difficulty spotting a field I’d use every aid I could to its location.

They may not have ‘switched’ frequency as such. A King Air would almost certainly have two comms sets so it could have been a question of switching radios rather than frequency (Small point, but you might have been considering the distraction of dialling in a frequency?)

Moggy (pilot)

Turning on runway lights by repeated use of the transmit switch is something that does not happen in the UK but I have been briefed about it in the US.

From what I remember it was not two clicks, as that could easily happen by accident, even if clicking to transmit when going over a bump, and I remember seven clicks being mentioned. The aeroplane would have to have been on the relevant frequency but most radios allow you to toggle between two frequencies easily and the aeroplane could have had twin comms sets.

I can’t comment about whether it is normal to turn on the lights in daytime as the situation does not happen here in the UK, but remember that one person’s “five miles” is another’s “two miles and murky”. Turning on the lights might help find the airfield if the pilot was unfamiliar with the area or the geography was such that it was hard to find (think featureless flat terrain on a grey day with no direct sunlight and then the lights could be very useful).

Incidentally, 3-4 miles at 700 feet does not give you very much visibility at all. 700 feet is 100 below the circuit height where I fly. Many US fields have a circuit height of 1000 ft above the airfield so 700 feet is not ideal conditions by any stretch of the imagination. I am sure we have all done it but you usually don’t fly VFR by choice when it is that low.

Hope that helps.