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I'm no pilot, but offhand...

- They'd have to miss the sign at the intersection of the runway and the taxiway. The sign would say "26" in white numbering on a red background. The sign, however, might not be lit, and they might not be able to see it (CRJ-100s have taxi lights, I assume, but I don't know how bright they are).

- They'd have to miss the big white "26" painted on the end of the runway. I don't know whether that "26" is behind or in front of where they would turn onto the runway; and also, those numbers are more oriented toward pilots in the air, not sitting 8-10 feet off the ground in a cockpit right in front of them. Or perhaps the numbers were faded, or the concrete cracking rendered them hard to read.

- Assuming that the note about the edge lighting on runway 26 being out of service was indeed accurate, they'd have to miss noticing that they were lining up on an unlit runway instead of a runway with functioning edge lighting. If the lights were working, or they didn't know the lighting on that runway was out, maybe they couldn't tell.

- They'd have to miss that their gyro and compass were indicating roughly 263 degrees instead of roughly 223 degrees. The CRJ has a compass mounted on the center windshield strut between the two pilots, and also indicates the heading on one of the displays in front of each pilot. But it might not be on their checklists to do that.

- The controller in the tower would have to miss that the aircraft was sitting on the wrong runway.

}:-)4

Lowell Wiley, a flight instructor who flies almost daily from Lexington, said he was confused by the redirected taxi route when he was with a student taking off from the main runway Friday.

Pilots encountered problems with the runway layout at Lexington's airport in the past, as well.

In a letter filed in 1993 with the Aviation Safety Reporting System, maintained by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a pilot described his experience:

"Aircraft was cleared for immediate takeoff (traffic was inside the marker) on runway 22 at KLEX. We taxied onto the runway and told tower we needed a moment to check our departure routing with our weather radar (storms were in the area, raining at the airport). We realized our heading was not currect for our assigned runway and at that moment, tower called us to cancel the takeoff clearance because we were lined up on runway 26."

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060828/D8JPJ4B81.html

- They'd have to miss the big white "26" painted on the end of the runway. I don't know whether that "26" is behind or in front of where they would turn onto the runway; and also, those numbers are more oriented toward pilots in the air, not sitting 8-10 feet off the ground in a cockpit right in front of them. Or perhaps the numbers were faded, or the concrete cracking rendered them hard to read.

Go to minute 4:05 of the tape in #880 above. I can not see the numbers "26" though the numbers "22" are very clear on the adjacent runway.