How about painting the end/beginning of runways RED or GREEN so this mistake can’t happen.
A couple gallons (maybe more) of paint could potentially save hundreds lives.
This has almost happened several times recently.
Runways are lit in different colors already, paint would not be visible at night. This was gross pilot error.
Apparently the AC plane realized they were landing on a taxiway about when they were over the first of four planes waiting to take off. They narrowly missed the first two before the command to lift took effect between the second and third planes.
Discussion on a pilots’ forum seems to be divided on whether the disaster was avoided because of an ATC instruction or the pilot’s realization but the avoidance began just about when ATC alerted them.
Either way, the error should have been recognized 30 seconds or more earlier when the plane was 2-3 miles out.
The cause is apparently related to the fact that there are two parallel runways and a taxiway, and lights were out on the far left runway, which was the subject of a “NOTAM” that the pilots supposedly read in their briefing. Either they forgot about it, or lost situational awareness (they thought the right “runway” which was actually a taxiway was their target runway and the target runway was the unlit runway.)
Apparently this has happened several times before at various airports when lights are out on runways that are normally lit. As for color coded warnings, there is a big red X in lights at the end of the taxiway. And taxiway lights look different from the air than runway lights. But with the planes on the taxiway, it may have created the illusion that the lights were more similar.
Basically, this mega-accident was avoided by about three to five seconds according to the information available.