Narrative:

When I set up for the ILS to my destination my flaps would not come down and a flaps fail cas message appeared. The runways available at other airports in the vicinity were not long enough for a no flap landing so I had to go to san. The airport was busy and I was very busy reconfiguring the airplane for a different destination and approach.I landed successfully but in my zeal to try to clear the runway quickly because there were many large aircraft behind me; I turned onto what appeared to be a taxiway to get off the runway and it was not. It was a large concrete path between the taxiway and the runway. I entered it between the blue taxiway lights. I was in communication with ground and it was a non-event to taxi on the paved area to the parallel taxiway and the rest of the taxi to the FBO was uneventful. No other aircraft were involved nor did I come close to anyone and I cleared the runway promptly.it was night. I had just dealt with a serious malfunction. I was trying to do the right thing and the taxiway markings which are nonstandard together with nothing to mark the adjacent paved area as not a taxiway contributed. The ground chart did not appear on my mfd as I had to configure the aircraft without the GPS for guidance quickly.what is the moral of this story? No attempt to do a good deed goes unpunished. Tired and excited from an emergency is a bad mix. The taxiway markings in the dark are terrible and keep changing so that it is difficult to determine what is and what isn't a taxiway at night. In forty years of flying this has never happened to me. Airport markings are confusing; change constantly; are difficult; especially at night; and bear no resemblance to any other markings anywhere on earth. They also vary from airport to airport and when you couple that with ever changing phrases from ATC as well as ever changing acronyms and weather report formats; the recipe for disaster is obvious. I have repeatedly communicated with the FAA on this subject over the years in my attempts to improve aviation safety.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The single pilot of a VLJ; distracted after a flap malfunction requiring a diversion; turned off the runway at SAN between the posted taxiways. Although still on hard surface; technically a runway excursion.

Narrative: When I set up for the ILS to my destination my flaps would not come down and a Flaps Fail CAS message appeared. The runways available at other airports in the vicinity were not long enough for a no flap landing so I had to go to SAN. The airport was busy and I was very busy reconfiguring the airplane for a different destination and approach.I landed successfully but in my zeal to try to clear the runway quickly because there were many large aircraft behind me; I turned onto what appeared to be a taxiway to get off the runway and it was not. It was a large concrete path between the taxiway and the runway. I entered it between the blue taxiway lights. I was in communication with Ground and it was a non-event to taxi on the paved area to the parallel taxiway and the rest of the taxi to the FBO was uneventful. No other aircraft were involved nor did I come close to anyone and I cleared the runway promptly.It was night. I had just dealt with a serious malfunction. I was trying to do the right thing and the taxiway markings which are nonstandard together with nothing to mark the adjacent paved area as not a taxiway contributed. The ground chart did not appear on my MFD as I had to configure the aircraft without the GPS for guidance quickly.What is the moral of this story? No attempt to do a good deed goes unpunished. Tired and excited from an emergency is a bad mix. The taxiway markings in the dark are terrible and keep changing so that it is difficult to determine what is and what isn't a taxiway at night. In forty years of flying this has never happened to me. Airport markings are confusing; change constantly; are difficult; especially at night; and bear no resemblance to any other markings anywhere on earth. They also vary from airport to airport and when you couple that with ever changing phrases from ATC as well as ever changing acronyms and weather report formats; the recipe for disaster is obvious. I have repeatedly communicated with the FAA on this subject over the years in my attempts to improve aviation safety.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.