B737 first officer reported being distracted during cockpit set up for a quick turn and forgot to tu...

Narrative:

We had an unscheduled aircraft swap with a 23 minute turn. I went onto the next aircraft to get it ready; the captain stayed with our inbound aircraft to shut it down. As it was such a quick turn; I was a bit rushed; flight attendant was talking to me while I was setting up cockpit so a little distracted as well. We boarded quickly and taxied out. Taxi out was normal and we noticed no abnormal indications or flags. Once airborne; inop flags then dropped on heading and attitude indicator. Attitude indicator and heading indicator were not moving normally so I informed the captain I couldn't fly the RNAV departure and we needed a vector. The captain requested a vector from departure. We assessed that the dg and attitude indicators were not moving and we decided to return to the airport. We returned to the departure airport and landed visually. After returning to the gate; we realized the IRS's were never turned on. This was missed during the preflight.I shouldn't have allowed distractions or time issues to interfere with procedures and flows i.e.: turning on the IRS. Although we did not have any flags on the instruments taxiing out; I incorrectly interpreted the thru flight versus originating flow; this would have caught the error as the GPWS wouldn't have tested. Also; when checking recall on the checklist; I poked the button quickly and didn't see a light. I will take the time to verify its status.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 First Officer reported being distracted during cockpit set up for a quick turn and forgot to turn on the IRS. No flags were visible during taxi out; but once airborne it became obvious that heading and attitude displays were frozen. The flight returned visually to the departure airport.

Narrative: We had an unscheduled aircraft swap with a 23 minute turn. I went onto the next aircraft to get it ready; the Captain stayed with our inbound aircraft to shut it down. As it was such a quick turn; I was a bit rushed; Flight Attendant was talking to me while I was setting up cockpit so a little distracted as well. We boarded quickly and taxied out. Taxi out was normal and we noticed no abnormal indications or flags. Once airborne; inop flags then dropped on heading and attitude indicator. Attitude indicator and heading indicator were not moving normally so I informed the Captain I couldn't fly the RNAV Departure and we needed a vector. The Captain requested a vector from departure. We assessed that the DG and attitude indicators were not moving and we decided to return to the airport. We returned to the departure airport and landed visually. After returning to the gate; we realized the IRS's were never turned on. This was missed during the preflight.I shouldn't have allowed distractions or time issues to interfere with procedures and flows i.e.: turning on the IRS. Although we did not have any flags on the instruments taxiing out; I incorrectly interpreted the thru flight versus originating flow; this would have caught the error as the GPWS wouldn't have tested. Also; when checking recall on the checklist; I poked the button quickly and didn't see a light. I will take the time to verify its status.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1415684
Time
Date	201701
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	INS / IRS / IRU
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying First Officer
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 182 Flight Crew Type 1550
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown

B737 first officer reported being distracted during cockpit set up for a quick turn and forgot to turn on the IRS. No flags were visible during taxi out; but once airborne it became obvious that heading and attitude displays were frozen. The flight returned visually to the departure airport.