When I pulled up the Google Earth map of the Hong Kong airport, (maybe this link will work), I noticed that there were multi-engine jets facing each other at opposite ends of the runway. Is this normal? It seems unsafe but I assume that they know what they’re doing. And don’t planes typically take off and land in the same direction?
I believe that @LSLGuy is our resident aviation expert so I’ll tag him.
I think I see the issue. The image of the west end of the runway seems to be merged into a different image of the east end. At least I think that’s what’s going on.
Yeah - you can see the vertical line through the merged images where lighting conditions changed.
“The west plane has flown most anywhere, from Zanzibar to Barclay Square. But the east plane’s only seen the sights a plane could see from Brooklyn Heights… What a crazy pair!”
Good to see the mystery resolved. 
Pretty sure they don’t do that when taking off. @LSLGuy can probably confirm.
It happened at Tenerife airport in March of 1977, as I recall it didn’t end well…
Of course it happens that the winds shift and they change runways. I guess that is done carefully.
The two aircraft had landed at Los Rodeos earlier in the day, and were among a number of aircraft diverted to Los Rodeos due to a bomb explosion at their intended destination of Gran Canaria Airport. The airport had become congested with parked airplanes blocking the only taxiway, forcing departing aircraft to taxi on the runway.
So according to Wkipedia, the KLM was supposed to go to the end of the runway, turn around ready to take off. Pan Am was supposed to follow a bit later, then get off the runway to a side taxiway to let KLM take off. KLM misunderstood that it was cleared for takeoff.
Maybe LSLguy can also comment on the concept of taking off in fog with visibility so poor KLM could not see PanAm halfway down the runway? That’s a major level of literal blind trust there.
As I understand it, one of the main problems leading to the Tenerife disaster (among many other “holes in the Swiss cheese”) was a raging and severe case of “get-there-itis” on the part of the Dutch captain, combined with the fact that the Dutch captain in question was THE (or one of the) most senior offmember gets in KLM and his cockpit crew was reluctant to question his judgment.
Too late to edit: “offmember gets” = “officers”. Sorry !
From what I know, with the clearances given by the tower it was not unreasonable that the KLM thought it was cleared for takeoff and the only transmission from the tower that could have averted the disaster was blocked by a heterodyne. Sadly, the heterodyne was caused by the Pan-Am radioing that they were still on the runway so THAT call that could have averted the disaster was blocked by the same heterodyne.
This is how wide-body jets display dominance. Since even minor damage is an existential risk to apex jets, one will always back down before the confrontation becomes physical. So this is quite a safe and normal way for them to maintain their status hierarchy.
It looks angry, I’m gonna touch it!
IT’S ANGRY!
IT’S ANGRY!
And in the parking apron above the taxiway you see one jetliner fade away into nonexistence from left to right where the line crosses it.
I think I saw that episode of The Twilight Zone.
And the get-there-itis was driven by a regulation that if they did not take off by time X, they would have had to terminate the flight, and have rest and try again 12+ hours later. But …
Tenerife was an airport that had no facilities to accommodate a parked 747, and no hotel facilities for the 300+ people. Or for them. It was a total catch-22 trap situation. They’d all be stuck living on that airplane until the weather cleared and KLM flew a fresh crew out to Tenerife to rescue everyone. Which might have taken 2 days due to the flight times involved.
Had Pan Am not missed their turnoff and been trapped on the runway, the KLM takeoff would have been uneventful.
Many, many things went wrong that day. But the industry planning every day to use an airport that is utterly inadequate for emergency diversions is simply asking for such a disaster to happen once the weather and other factors converge.
In fact one of the lessons to come from Tenerife was to require that adequate ground facilities for passengers overnighting be part of all airlines’ diversion plans. Which has the consequence of reducing the “must take off by time X or we and the 300+ people we’re responsible for are utterly screwed” pressure and changing it to the much more manageable “We really want to depart by time X. But if not, it’ll be inconvenient, not a total shitshow.”
Even more to your point, that turnoff would have been impossible for the Pan-Am to make as it was two very tight turns.
Photographic evidence of the Langoliers!
The specifics of the OP’s situation at Hong Kong with an artifact of Google’s aerial pictures has been addressed.
But airplanes at opposite ends facing are not unusual at certain airports. Here’s one:
One runway, no taxiways, and the airline ramp is on the north side of the runway about midway down the length.
So a typical landing involves rolling past the airline ramp. Then if your plane is small enough (B737/A320 or smaller), you can slow to a near stop then pull a 180 on the runway and taxi back the opposite direction to exit towards the terminal. If your airplane is bigger (and many are) then after landing you taxi all the way to the far end where there’s a turnout big enough to accommodate your much larger turning circle. Then you head back to the mid-field terminal.
Meanwhile a jet prepping for takeoff will do the same sort of thing: exit the terminal ramp onto the runway, taxi all the way to the opposite end, turn around, then take off.
For efficiency’s sake it’s real common that as soon as a landing plane passes the terminal, another is cleared to enter the runway and “back-taxi” to the departure end. So initially the two planes are tail to tail, with noses pointed towards their respective ends. Then both get to their end, then turn to face one another. Ideally the just-landed plane is fully off the runway by then and the about-to-takeoff plane can be immediately cleared to go. But if not, there they sit nose to nose with someone coming the other way.
That particular airport is dead flat and so it’s easy to see a large airplane at the other end. There are a couple of other airports I used to frequent down there with a modest hill in the middle of the runway. So you know there’s somebody down there on the far side of the rise pointed your way. You just hope they’re paying attention and aren’t moving until / unless they should be. Meanwhile you’re also hoping you too are doing the right thing, as is the controller.