Just before Chinese New Year, I was flying from Hong Kong to London on CX. We flew across Russia and just south of St Petersburg* I noticed large square/rectangular light installations below me. They were a very bright orange and made me think of LED lights. They were much brighter than the street/city lighting I could see in the distance.
As we continued flying, I saw similar installations that appeared to be off the Dutch coast* (I might be mistaken, as these had light cloud/fog cover and I couldn't clearly see any coastline).
Does anyone have any idea what these could be? They were too square to be natural, and inordinately bright. The light appeared (to me) to be too constant to be fire.
* I got my location data from the aircraft moving map, so it might not be absolutely accurate. The map did show us flying south of the city when I saw the first set of lights, and I certainly could see city lights out of my window.
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Re: Bright lights just south of St Petersburg (RU)
Maybe petrochemical installations - oil or gas refineries with burnoff?
Re: Bright lights just south of St Petersburg (RU)
Leej wrote:Maybe petrochemical installations - oil or gas refineries with burnoff?
That was one of my first guesses as well, but I doubted myself ... so decided to ask
Re: Bright lights just south of St Petersburg (RU)
BreninTW wrote:
As we continued flying, I saw similar installations that appeared to be off the Dutch coast* (I might be mistaken, as these had light cloud/fog cover and I couldn't clearly see any coastline).
Those could be ships anchored at sea outside harbor entrances. If it was on land then they were most likely greenhouses which light up the entire cloud ceiling for many kilometers.
Martijn
Re: Bright lights just south of St Petersburg (RU)
CrimsonNL wrote:BreninTW wrote:
As we continued flying, I saw similar installations that appeared to be off the Dutch coast* (I might be mistaken, as these had light cloud/fog cover and I couldn't clearly see any coastline).
Those could be ships anchored at sea outside harbor entrances. If it was on land then they were most likely greenhouses which light up the entire cloud ceiling for many kilometers.
Martijn
Speaking of bright lights in the Netherlands:
On a recent flight out of AMS from RWY 18L heading roughly due south (nighttime) I spotted a massive "TV-screen"/monitor on the left side of the aircraft. Any idea what it was? It was very shortly after takeoff.
Re: Bright lights just south of St Petersburg (RU)
VSMUT wrote:Speaking of bright lights in the Netherlands:
On a recent flight out of AMS from RWY 18L heading roughly due south (nighttime) I spotted a massive "TV-screen"/monitor on the left side of the aircraft. Any idea what it was? It was very shortly after takeoff.
That's the Ziggo Dome concert venue for sure;
https://youtu.be/dBsfnFpk1ik
Martijn
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