Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
General None Reported / Taken
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
Flight operated from ILM with [an early morning] departure time. Arriving at the gate preparing for first flight of the day procedures the Captain briefed an MEL for an APU fault status message and NOTAMs for lights that were out of service on the field. The Captain also briefed the need for a takeoff alternate for the weather and made the necessary calls to Dispatch. I took care of my duties; preflight walk around; departure setup; etc. We had a busier than normal morning given the MEL and weather on top of our normal duties but with time management and working together we were able to push back from the gate on time.With an early morning departure the tower would not be open until [later] so we received our clearance from Washington Center after our pushback. After running our checklists we began our taxi out to the runway. I made standard radio calls for an uncontrolled field on taxi. For the time of day the airport environment was rather visible with a well lit ramp area; and bright aircraft taxi lights. We departed Runway 35 without having keyed up the airport lighting system. We completed our flight successfully and without further incident.Looking back on our flight I believe that I did not activate the airport lighting system because the visibility did not seem to be an issue as I could see the taxi/runway environment and I did not think to activate the lights. Upon departure I could visibly see '35' on the runway; the center line; and the edge of the Runway.The Captain and I were both not aware that we had departed without airport lighting on until later the same day we were notified a ramp agent had informed [another] crew of our departure. They notified their Chief pilot; who contacted [our carrier].The event occurred as we were departing an uncontrolled field in which we had sufficient visibility that neither I nor the Captain thought to key up the airport lighting system.
Regional Jet First Officer reported they failed to activate runway lighting on an early morning departure from ILM because lighting seemed sufficient.