Jay, congratulations, you would not have done what AC did, and you would not have been confused as the preceding aircraft had as well. Equally, you don't have the risk of making the error that occurs on average every few weeks in the rest of the world, english speaking and otherwise. The AC SOP is great for the QB approach, except that it is a major pain on an aircraft like an Airbus. The crew are asked to fly an approach to protect the tender ears of the dear people that have built properties to the south and east of the airfield, sine the jets have been used there. So the crews are set up to not have the best nav displays for a straight in approach, in fact we end up with converging flight paths with aircraft on an adjacent runway which is well below the standard for lateral separation, and so we are playing dodgems with other aircraft as well, and institute special procedures so that the "Risk" can be managed. Frankly, its about time to tell the world to stuff off on placing pax at risk for noise impact which results in increased risk to the crew and passengers. Globally, development has occurred around the approach paths and departure routes of airports, as the land was cheap, and then the restrictions have been applied.
We nearly ended up with 5 dead aircraft at SFO in this event, which would have added a bit of noise to the issue. About time to change the discussion, and start protecting the crew and pax rights.
I would probably make many mistakes if I was in a state of fatigue.
You're going on and on about theoretical concepts but please.. Let me show you the illustration in the report
To me, the real problem is with runway lighting.
First, many airports, in their penny-wiseness, don't turn on all the available runway lighting.
For instance, I've landed at many international airports where you only had runway edge lights, PAPI, runway entry lights (the green line) and nothing else !
Then you can confuse it with a taxiway, because you can see on the picture it just looks like a green runway, which is confusing.
Second, airports could (and some do) use some ground lighting for taxiways. In Europe, many airfields have blue lighting that is completely invisible from the air.