← All explained questions · Night Operations

You see another aircraft at night showing its red light on your left and green light on your right. What is it doing?

Choices

✓ Moving away from youcorrect
Red on your left and green on your right shows the aircraft is generally moving away from you.
Heading toward you head-on
Approaching head-on you would see red on your right and green on your left; the reverse means it is moving away.
Crossing left to right
A pure crossing shows predominantly one color, not red-left/green-right.
On the ground
Position-light geometry indicates direction, not ground status.

Why

Position lights are red on the left wing and green on the right. Seeing the other aircraft’s red on your left and green on your right means it is generally moving away from you; an aircraft approaching head-on would instead show red on your right and green on your left.

FAA source: AIM 4-3-23 / 14 CFR 91.209browse the reference library →

This is taught in Aircraft Lights, Equipment and Preflight — study the lessons free, then practice with grading and mastery tracking.

Original study question written for this course — representative of FAA knowledge-test topics, not an actual current FAA exam question.