Mentioned up thread KSEA (Seatac) had 8 landings on taxiway tango between dec 99 and nov 08 (about one a year) until the new 16R/34L was built. There were multitudes of go arounds. Most were by pilots with experience with KSEA and a multitude of operators. The airport even placed a giant yellow "X" at both ends of tango, there were still landings on tango and go arounds on tango.
The common element at KSEA, before the new runway, and Paphos is the placement of the taxiway in a configuration that placed the taxiway away from the terminal.
This is a human element, the human brain often reacts to what it expects to see. Throw in as many human elements that add up: long duty day, delayed flight, get there itis, last leg of the day, last day of a tough schedule, infrequent visitor to the airport, the list goes on.

No Excuses but :D :D :D

I couldn't get the technical issues related to linking a google maps sat view properly so I'll just suggest taking a look yourselves. Search Las Vegas Airport (KLAS) and zoom in on the taxiways adjacent to the Rwys 19L&R thresholds to see one pretty handy solution to the taxiway/runway identification issue. Note the squiggly lines painted over the taxiway centerlines at the north end. Using these for taxi guidance is NOT recommended!

Yes, mistakes happen. In the case of landing other than where intended, there are a great many reasons why this might happen. Those reasons should be addressed wherever possible. The most effective way to trap errors is to be looking for them. Whether in the air or or on the ground, a pilot needs to be on constant watch for anything that doesn't look right. This is more true than ever when tired or distracted. Everyone makes mistakes. The sooner you catch them, the better chance there is that they can be corrected before they snowball.

The way I see it, anything that can reasonably be done to aid pilots in properly identifying the landing surface should be done. But when I'm an assigned pilot crewmember I fully realize that the responsibility is mine if a mistake is allowed to turn into an incident or worse. I look for that approach to personal responsibility in any pilot I fly with too. That's the only acceptable attitude as far as I'm concerned. I'm not perfect either. Yet I fully expect to be judged by the same standard.

Agree A and C, greece, it's only by the skill of the crews that there aren't more accidents, money has gone, disappeared, no investment in runways / markings or aids, EVER.

Ok, all the visual / NPA rubbish airports have got an inch thick of approach stars and sids courtesy of the greek bureaucrats.

Cyprus, not much better, compare that to Turkey with state of the art everything, makes the UK look like Africa.

No one was hurt, nothing was damaged but pride.

Maybe there's a hope that the airport might paint something as simple as an X on the end of the taxiway, because boy's and girl's, these pilots are not idiots and but for the grace of god.

PAPHOS AIRPORT
 

Paphos airport it is NOT a tricky airport !! As captain in olympic airways for more than 22 yrs i landed at least 20 times, and also during night ! The incident is due to captain carelesness !

Serafim Kamoutis
As a presumably intelligent Captain with Olympic Airways one would thought that you would have the decency not to make a presumption until the result of the enquiry.
Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Thrush, newest fo at Thomson has five years with company, and about 3500 hours tt. Captains are about 10000 hrs. No excuse but we don't know what happened in the flight deck to cause this incident.
Serafirm- 20 landings at pfo in 22 years. Hardly experienced at the airport I would say. Think I have done 15 in the last twelve months at pfo.
We will all wait and see what the reports say.

Gents - - never assume! 20 in 22 years - obviously a slacker.:) No wonder the country is in difficulties if folk work that hard.

rjay259

Thomson also have a lot of destinations. In nearly 8 years of flying with them my MOST frequent destination has averaged at less than once a month, and I've been to PFO eleven times.

I wonder what the ATC side of the enquiries will look like?
When I was at school, I got a b*llocking for looking out of the window.
When I was doing Aerodrome ATC, I got paid to look out of the window.
Having said that, looking at inbalance's superb landing video, the angle of both the touchdown points from the VCR appears to be fairly similar.

@BOAC

Serafim beiing a slacker or not, you being an idiot or not, pilot's or ATC's error, fact is: Paphos is not a tricky airport.

Dear Mods, I am really fed up with people in this forum grasping at every single oportunity to offend Greeks in general. :=

Sounds like a good case for fitting RAAS.....

Helps to stop this type of incident if all else has failed.

Or fitting another pair of eyes in the VCR.

We must have had the same teacher...

The tower is on the north side of the runway, facing south into the sun, to view the runways. Depending on the ergonomics of the tower controllers position, adequate sun shading/blinds, dirt on the windows etc etc, there's the potential, (regardless of workload) that the tower controller may have had a compromised viewpoint to notice any missalignment.

Simple answer: Leave runway approach and runway lighting on during hours of operation, therefore no chance of misidentification.

Sounds good to me Bill. There must be enough sunshine out there to provide some some solar energy input to the approach lighting system. EGCC are working on this I believe.
Checking your location indicator it could mean 'light at the end of the tunnel'.
10/10 for thinking out of The Box.

I used to into CDG (a lot) and when a runway was out of use, the frogs would put up a giant flashing red 'X'.

It must have stood 20 feet tall and they stuck it on the threshold.

It was 100% effective.

Why not stick something similar near this taxiway before someone gets killed?

You can always switch it off or fold it down in the unlikely event of having to press this taxiway into service as a runway.

I remember doing a 'fam-flight' to LFPG and seeing for the first time a big red band across the link with 'RUNWAY AHEAD' painted in large friendly letters.
Simple, cheap, and (hopefully), effective.

It happens!
 

All the excellent suggestions could be incorporated and they may well save the odd incident. In many years of ops, I experienced two near ‘misses’ in this arena. One going into Ovda, VOR let down, breaking cloud on limits, 30 degrees offset. 2 parallel r/ws and a narrow parallel taxiway. One r/w was completely dug up (Notamed). Almost sunset, r/w wet, sun reflected off the taxiway giving the appearance of lighting. At about 2 miles, serious doubt flooded in – it looked frightfully narrow. I realized the error just as the tower said “That’s the taxiway!” A quick side-step saved the day and, fortunately for me, the CAA inspector who was on the jump seat, said that he had been fooled as well. Phew!
The other occurred at LHR. Absolutely inexplicable and well may be in the same category as the Paphos incident. LHR Easterlies land only on the Left of the two parallels. T/O’s are from both. ILS idented AA for L and BB for R. With 2 very (very) experienced operators, we established on the R until Tower (many, many thanks), queried it. We had both idented the ILS, both were based at LHR and both had operated there for at least 20 years. Why? I have often wondered and tried to analyse this, but to no avail. I am afraid that, every now and again, sh*t happens.

Prober - excellent post. There for the grace of God go I ??

Some other excellent posts plus some who really should be ashamed of themselves, including the apparently experienced pilots. It makes me laugh how the 20 hour ppl hopefuls think they have a wealth of experience in the airline world, but it shows when they post some absolute cr*p.