Landing lights penalty at 16000 feet

[alemaobaiano]

Gents

I've just completed a flight into El Alto, Bolivia (SLLP) which has an elevation of 13300'. On the approach, level at 16000' I flew over a ridgeline and my FO popped up and warned me about the landing lights being off. I turned them on....and flew away from the ridge where I got another message about the lights being on I turned them off again and continued my approach, turning them back on again at 14800' as originally planned, this time without any penalty.

As our VA now has quite a few high altitude airports in use I would like to know how to avoid this issue in the future? The terrain around these airports is extremely mountainous and momentary breaches of the 1000' AGL rule probably won't be unusual, especially if under FS ATC control. Does that mean that every flight into one of these airports will pick up a penalty?

Your advice would be appreciated.

Tony

[CAPFlyer]

If you're coming within 1000 feet of terrain and you're not on final approach, then you're allowing ATC to vector you unsafely. You should not come within 2000 feet of any terrain during approach until established on the localizer or runway final approach path.

There's really no good way to "fix" the way it's done because it has to be kept consistent. Changing it anymore would most likely result in inconsistency.

[MMattyK]

Hiya guys...
Just out of interest, I had a similar issue, not only on landing, but also on take off at SLLP With my landing lights on, as soon as my wheels lifted off the tarmac at the end of the runway in use, I got dinged with the landing lights on over 10 000' and then switching them off, I got dinged with the landing lights off under 1000'
certainly got me scratching my head... but not complaining.. getting the aircraft off the tarmac in the first place was erm interesting ... but we live and learn