Cabin Lights On For Take Off & Landing In Hours Of Darkness?
 

Morning All

Just sat in T5 Galleries North after arriving from DME and waiting to get home to Boonie Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿.

On BA236 from DME this morning, A321 mid haul service operated by Mixed Fleet crew. I am a self confessed window licker on take off and landing and enjoy the views and like to try and pinpoint landmarks. Just as we were going full throttle down the runway at DME, it suddenly occurred to me that the interior cabin lights were still at full illumination which spoiled the outside view a bit as it was still dark outside.

After a wee sleep and approaching the South East coastline, the lights were put on for the cabin crew to prepare for arrival. Nice clear sky over London & managed to pick out a few landmarks, but again, lights stayed on full. Managed to get a couple of decent snaps after angling myself and phone to minimise reflections of myself and the interior of the cabin but looking from the light into the dark doesn’t give the best views.

In all all the years I’ve been flying, regardless of airline, I have always experienced the cabin lights being dimmed for take off or landing in the hours of darkness which I was under the impression was for safety reasons/orientation in case of emergency evacuation during darkness (please tell me if my understanding of that is crap :p).

Anybody else experienced this? Is it a new SOP? If it was one or other, I could understand the crew maybe just forgot, but for both take off & landing :confused:

Any thoughts?

S

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ebdac98cc.jpeg

No new SOP - more likely an omission or the lights could not be dimmed.

Cabin lights are usually dimmed. Sometimes the SCCM forgets to do it. The majority of times in my experience they do dim the lights for take and landing.

EDIT: as noted above, possible they couldn't dim then either rather than forgetting.

Thanks Waterhouse. Even if they were able to dim them during the flight?

S

Dimming the lights is a safety procedure and has been for many years (so that if an evacuation needs to take place, your eyes are already adjusted to low light levels), so I assume in this case the crew simply forgot!

With the increasing regularity with which this is happening - although more often lights not sufficiently dimmed IMHO - I'm beginning to suspect a lot of the younger cabin crew are afraid of the dark.

If it's happening very regularly, it might be worth pointing out to customer relations - not as a complaint of course, but I'd imagine the safety department would want to know in case they need to send a reminder out.

Sounds like an omission or lack of emphasis in training leading to a few SCCMs failing to do the lights at night. I will pass it along as feedback as I am in the training school next week.

Had it the other day in a weird way on landing at LHR.

Crew made announcement that cabin lights would be dimmed for landing for night etc,

They just turned off certain rows of lights and left half of them on.

can you also let them know that there have been a few takeoffs where my paperback book in the ghost seat 1B has been that have gone unnoticed causing the CAA an untold amount of anguish that I cannot fathom. Not to mention the 48 phones that are not on flight mode on each flight. Tsk.🙄

If, by that comment, you think I should not bother, then fine. I like sarcasm, it is a form of wit, perhaps the lowest - try a little harder and perhaps you can prove you are more than just a troll and add something to the thread.

Thank you for bothering to pass the feedback on to the right place :) I'm the vast majority of us appreciate your concern for the safety of passengers and crew!

Strangely, the crew never made any announcements pre take off or landing about dimming the cabin lights.

The CSM on the flight (he introduced himself as such), wore the red & blue tie but there was also another member of crew working with him in CW who wore the uniform of a CSM. He did look quite young and not being entirely sure of how the promotion wheels work, could he have been ‘in training’ as a CSM being supervised by one? I would imagine if that was the case then nerves could play out on this one...

S

There's at least one 777 flying around where the lights in the middle cabin simply refuse to be dimmed, so it could be that those in some rows were broken. Landing with lights on is probably marginally safer than flying round till the sun comes up ;)

Recently took off from Vegas in the hours of darkness (jetblue) Cabin crew actively told us to leave the window shutters down from take off to landing so not wake the passengers up. Thought it was very odd