Is it a mistake or standard procedure to lit the landing lights only on very short final? Yesterday I was spotting at Barcelona International (LEBL). I noticed that at least two airliners were approaching with their landing lights OFF, just to light them on very short final (about 0.4NM from runway threshold).

I thought landing lights were required to be ON at all times below 10000 feet. Am I wrong? Is there any situation when landing lights are not required below 10000 feet?

Visibility was excellent, I'm going to see if I can find the actual METARs but I would say CAVOK conditions. see the METARs:


LEBL 161630Z 17007KT 140V210 CAVOK 19/11 Q1019 NOSIG
LEBL 161700Z 20007KT 150V230 CAVOK 19/11 Q1019 NOSIG
LEBL 161730Z 22007KT 170V240 CAVOK 19/12 Q1019 NOSIG
LEBL 161800Z 21007KT CAVOK 18/12 Q1019 NOSIG
LEBL 161830Z 20005KT 170V230 CAVOK 18/12 Q1020 NOSIG
LEBL 161900Z 21005KT CAVOK 17/12 Q1020 NOSIG
It is not an ICAO requirement to operate landing lights whenever you are below 10,000 FT. The mandatory aircraft lights you will see in regulations is strobe lights, nav lights and anti collision beacon lights.

It is standard operating procedure at several airlines to only turn on the landing lights when a landing clearance is received by air traffic control. This is most likely what you have observed. The landing clearance is usually given at very short final, and so crews will turn on the landing lights on very short final (unless you are in FAA territory, where multiple aircraft can be cleared to land on the same runway at the same time ...)