There's more to landing than taxiing on the runway, like approaching the ground at a minimum of 250 km/h while getting hit by winds, often with very little visibility.
I would hope the difference between a landing and a crash is a little more than 'feet' otherwise we'd have a lot more crashes. Maybe the difference between a BAD landing and a crash is only feet :)
Errr... yes it does. A runway is empty space. There are no other planes on it, it's a straight, well-maintained stretch of pavement, kept clear of ice and snow, with clear markings. Those are conditions so easy that non-self-driving cars can manage to navigate them for non-trivial periods of time without hitting anything! The Mythbusters have had a couple of cars go entirely out of control a couple times under those circumstances and the damage was a fence, once, IIRC.
No. The captain was not attempting to land on a runway. He was attempting to land on a taxiway, which is painted and lit up completely differently, and also covered in airplanes.
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