Narrative:

Pilot not flying (PNF) obtained clearance from smo tower; PEER2 departure. Smo tower gave us taxi clearance. While taxiing to runway 21; smo tower announced that they were closing and we would need to get departure release from socal. We held short of runway 21 facing east and PNF contacted socal for release. Socal held us while coordinating with lax. Held for approx. 10 minutes. Socal called and gave us a 10 minute window for departure. PNF acknowledged release; switched to CTAF and gave a blind call that we were departing RW21 at smo. We ran the line up checklist while taxiing onto the runway. While we were holding we were facing east looking up the arrival corridor for runway 21 and saw no traffic. I was using the enhanced vision system and saw no lights on final. I checked final as we were taxiing into position and as just before line up I saw navigation lights; no landing lights or strobe lights in the approach area. I remarked that I wondered what that aircraft was doing as it was low and there were no landing lights. It was very difficult to determine his distance from the airport. I thought it could be a helicopter. I then thought that maybe it could be landing airplane. We were on the runway so my thought was to get out of the other aircraft's way. We proceeded with an expedited takeoff. Shortly after check in check in with socal; another aircraft asked socal if they had an aircraft that just departed smo. Socal said that he had a gulfstream that had just departed smo. The other pilot then complained that we had departed right in front of him. PNF said that we had made a call on CTAF and had not heard of any traffic. Pilot of other aircraft then asked on what freq we had made our call and PNF responded on 20.1. Pilot of other aircraft then complained that how could we miss him on final as he had all his lights on. At this point socal broke in and said that this was not the time or the place to have this discussion. Socal then gave us a heading change and altitude change followed by a freq. Change. Before we changed freq. The other pilot demanded that socal give him our north number. I have thought about this chain of events and believe blame belongs on both pilots. We needed to be more diligent in monitoring CTAF after the tower closed. The other pilot needed to be more diligent in using his landing lights and monitoring CTAF; if he had told us (or had been using his landing lights so we could have seen he was on final) we would have held for him to land. I still do not know how close we were to the other aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Gulfstream Captain reported they took off from SMO without noticing another aircraft on approach from the opposite direction.

Narrative: Pilot Not Flying (PNF) obtained clearance from SMO tower; PEER2 departure. SMO tower gave us taxi clearance. While taxiing to Runway 21; SMO tower announced that they were closing and we would need to get departure release from SOCAL. We held short of Runway 21 facing east and PNF contacted SOCAL for release. SOCAL held us while coordinating with LAX. Held for approx. 10 minutes. SOCAL called and gave us a 10 minute window for departure. PNF acknowledged release; switched to CTAF and gave a blind call that we were departing RW21 at SMO. We ran the line up checklist while taxiing onto the runway. While we were holding we were facing east looking up the arrival corridor for Runway 21 and saw no traffic. I was using the Enhanced Vision System and saw no lights on final. I checked final as we were taxiing into position and as just before line up I saw NAV lights; no landing lights or strobe lights in the approach area. I remarked that I wondered what that aircraft was doing as it was low and there were no landing lights. It was very difficult to determine his distance from the airport. I thought it could be a helicopter. I then thought that maybe it could be landing airplane. We were on the runway so my thought was to get out of the other aircraft's way. We proceeded with an expedited takeoff. Shortly after check in check in with SOCAL; another aircraft asked SOCAL if they had an aircraft that just departed SMO. SOCAL said that he had a Gulfstream that had just departed SMO. The other pilot then complained that we had departed right in front of him. PNF said that we had made a call on CTAF and had not heard of any traffic. Pilot of other aircraft then asked on what freq we had made our call and PNF responded on 20.1. Pilot of other aircraft then complained that how could we miss him on final as he had all his lights on. At this point SOCAL broke in and said that this was not the time or the place to have this discussion. SOCAL then gave us a heading change and altitude change followed by a freq. change. Before we changed freq. the other pilot demanded that SOCAL give him our N number. I have thought about this chain of events and believe blame belongs on both pilots. We needed to be more diligent in monitoring CTAF after the tower closed. The other pilot needed to be more diligent in using his landing lights and monitoring CTAF; if he had told us (or had been using his landing lights so we could have seen he was on final) we would have held for him to land. I still do not know how close we were to the other aircraft.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.