An air carrier captain reported three to four banks of bright construction lights associated with a ...

Narrative:

During taxi into [our] gate we were confronted with three or four batteries of extremely bright construction lights associated with the erection of the new terminal west of the current one. Each of these batteries has between 5 and 8 individual lamps and each is directed towards the inbound taxiway. It is nearly impossible to look at the taxiway and not look directly into these lights. This effectively kills any night vision abilities and makes it very difficult to discern any potential threats to a safe taxi operation. It also appears to be little reason for these lights on at the time as there were no workers present. Point lights in different direction; shield the lights so as to not shine out the taxiway; and/or turn them off when not in use.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An Air Carrier Captain reported three to four banks of bright construction lights associated with a new terminal construction shine in his eyes as he approaches the gates damaging night vision and obscuring ground objects.

Narrative: During taxi into [our] gate we were confronted with three or four batteries of extremely bright construction lights associated with the erection of the new terminal west of the current one. Each of these batteries has between 5 and 8 individual lamps and each is directed towards the inbound taxiway. It is nearly impossible to look at the taxiway and not look directly into these lights. This effectively kills any night vision abilities and makes it very difficult to discern any potential threats to a safe taxi operation. It also appears to be little reason for these lights on at the time as there were no workers present. Point lights in different direction; shield the lights so as to not shine out the taxiway; and/or turn them off when not in use.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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	952791
Time
Date	201106
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Large Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 257 Flight Crew Type 9500
Events
Anomaly	Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

An air carrier captain reported three to four banks of bright construction lights associated with a new terminal construction shine in his eyes as he approaches the gates damaging night vision and obscuring ground objects.