I'm on vacation in India and having a great time.

I was on a night flight on Indigo (one of the low cost carriers here, its kind of like their Southwest/Ryanair/CebuPacific) on an A320NEO. It was night and I had the window. We sat at the hold short to let an ATR land and then I heard the engines spool up and we began moving to take the active.

But the strobes never came on.

We lined up and waited on the active. No wingtip strobes.

We then began rolling and throughout takeoff run no strobes came on. As soon as we lifted off - you guessed it - the tip strobes sprang to life.

Forgotten checklist item? Or so I thought.

During the final approach about a mile out - yes you guessed it again - the strobes were SWITCHED OFF

Once again we touched down and trundled at night on an active with no strobes.

My feeling therefore is this crew has developed their own bad habit, it has to be the only explanation. Every other jet I saw had their strobes on while on the runway.

I have the entire taxi and takeoff on video but not the landing. I wish I had taken the landing too. Would be interested in reading everyones thoughts.

Airbus has AUTO/ON/OFF Strobe light positions. AUTO should react to ground/air logic.
During landing, what was the visibility/Ceiling? The Strobe flash in low vis can affect night vision and be a minor annoyance overall....

2 hours ago, SAS443 said:

Airbus has AUTO/ON/OFF Strobe light positions. AUTO should react to ground/air logic.
During landing, what was the visibility/Ceiling? The Strobe flash in low vis can affect night vision and be a minor annoyance overall....

This is accurate.

When in AUTO mode, the strobes don't activate until the aircraft lifts off. The MD80 and DC9 had a similar setting.

Also accurate about night ops. Sometimes, the strobe flash is visible from the cockpit and can affect night vision....or just be annoying, so it's switched off.

DB

Edited April 28, 20224 yr by DaviiB
Edited for precision

Thanks for the explanation @SAS443 &  @DaviiB

And there I was thinking they had forgotten 🙃

What got to me was that ALL the other airplanes (including the A320s in front of and behind us - we were in conga line) fired up their strobes as soon as they took the active.

I landed here from the UK on an Emirates 777 at night and he kept the strobes going on the runway too - and so did the ANA Dreamliners that touched down after us (which I saw as we taxied to the terminal).

I felt a bit vulnerable out there in the darkness sitting on this runway with no strobes on. Its the first time I have experienced this and so it got me wondering. Now of course the bright red beacons were on so we were not full on dark but nothing like some bright strobes to help the tower people and other airplanes.

Those of you who have flown Emirates know how their 777s and A380s wait their turn on those taxiways like drag racers and as soon as they begin to move to line up on the active the strobes fire up.

Vis was clear upto about 3000ft after which there was some scattered cloud. There was no fog. I will upload the vid to YT and link it on here.

I was especially surprised to seem them turned on short finals. Id want everyone to see me coming in. All those runway incursions and the like we read about. Be seen and all that 😃

I would have totally understood if they had done this in foggy low viz as I have seen how distracting the powerful flash can be. Its the same reason why we find it harder to drive with brights on in fog.

Edited April 28, 20224 yr by ThrottleUp

It must be IndiGo's company policy to switch them to AUTO.  At least that is the only explanation I can think of.

10 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

What got to me was that ALL the other airplanes (including the A320s in front of and behind us - we were in conga line) fired up their strobes as soon as they took the active.

In addition, from FCOM :

EXTERIOR LIGHTS STROBE sw............................................ON

Set the STROBE sw to ON to cross or enter a runway.

The PF can request the PM to set the exterior lights.

Note: The flight crew can switch off the strobe lights if the lights cause any visual trouble during the flight.

18 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

Thanks for the explanation @SAS443 &  @DaviiB

And there I was thinking they had forgotten 🙃

What got to me was that ALL the other airplanes (including the A320s in front of and behind us - we were in conga line) fired up their strobes as soon as they took the active.

I landed here from the UK on an Emirates 777 at night and he kept the strobes going on the runway too - and so did the ANA Dreamliners that touched down after us (which I saw as we taxied to the terminal).

I felt a bit vulnerable out there in the darkness sitting on this runway with no strobes on. Its the first time I have experienced this and so it got me wondering. Now of course the bright red beacons were on so we were not full on dark but nothing like some bright strobes to help the tower people and other airplanes.

Those of you who have flown Emirates know how their 777s and A380s wait their turn on those taxiways like drag racers and as soon as they begin to move to line up on the active the strobes fire up.

Vis was clear upto about 3000ft after which there was some scattered cloud. There was no fog. I will upload the vid to YT and link it on here.

I was especially surprised to seem them turned on short finals. Id want everyone to see me coming in. All those runway incursions and the like we read about. Be seen and all that 😃

I would have totally understood if they had done this in foggy low viz as I have seen how distracting the powerful flash can be. Its the same reason why we find it harder to drive with brights on in fog.

We're of course disregarding the possibility that the crewmember simply made a mistake, moving the switch by one position into AUTO, instead of all the way to ON.

I've made mistakes like that myself on the flight deck with sticky switches and knobs that are a little hard to move.....or too loose.

I've seen lights on airliners mistakenly left on or off in different phases of flight. We live in an imperfect world. As long as they don't forget the flaps and gear, I'm happy. There are warning systems for those though, so less likely to happen.

DB