The runway can be seen if you try. It's really not a point of visual focus. You fly the doughnuts. About at the point of the inner marker you confirm the runway. Do you really think a pilot sees the runway at night? The best landings of your aviation career are done at night without your landing lights. Think about the cockpit arrangement, the tiny windscreen, the seat position of the pilots, and the flight attitude of most large jets during landing and takeoff. Some executive jets give decent forward visibility and you tend to not flare them, you just fly them down and settle. If you flare a lear or citation, you're doing a go around. Heavy Iron is different. The pilot can see a half mile ahead.
The laser weapons system against aircraft is really meant to hit helicopter pilots who do spend all their time with their head outside the cockpit and low to the ground. It's not meant to disorient jets or airplanes.