Their destination was Gran Canaria Airport (also known as Las Palmas Airport or Gando Airport), serving Las Palmas on the nearby island of Gran Canaria. At that moment, Pan Am Captain Victor Grubbs spotted the landing lights of the KLM 747 hurtling out of the fog. On hearing this, the KLM flight engineer expressed his concern about the Pan Am not being clear of the runway by asking the pilots in his own cockpit, "Is he not clear that Pan American?" His First Officer, Klaas Meurs, was also no rookie, but he had only just upgraded to the 747, accumulating a mere 95 hours since acquiring his type rating, which Captain van Zanten had personally granted to him. Only upon arriving at the scene did they realize, to their immense horror, that the second fire was nothing less than another burning 747, the remains of Pan Am flight 1736. The Pan Am aircraft was unable to maneuver around the refueling KLM in order to reach the runway for takeoff, due to a lack of safe clearance between the two planes, which was just 3.7 meters (12ft). However, contrary to popular belief, the Dutch investigators concluded that this likely had no effect on the sequence of events and chose not to place any blame on the controller or the Pan Am crew. This was a problem in the crash when the Flight Engineer asked if they were not clear, but Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten (the captain of the KLM, with over 11,000 hours flown) said that they were obviously clear and the Flight Engineer decided that it was best not to contradict the captain. Although their characterization of the KLM pilots induced vigorous eye-rolling, the Dutch investigators were essentially right when they explained that the causes of the crash went way beyond Captain van Zantens mistaken decision to take off without clearance. Tenerife rises directly into the path of oceanic winds blowing off the Atlantic, which results in unpredictable conditions on the upwind slope of the island. Nobody had control over the fog, without which the accident would not have occurred. With the earlier bomb blast at Gran Canaria still fresh on their minds, the controllers first thought was that the terrorists had struck again. They collided on the runway after the departing KLM aircraft started its take-off run before the taxiing Pan Am aircraft had vacated the strip. Qantas I think I just passed Charlie four now, First Officer Meurs said, observing what appeared to be the fourth and final taxiway angling off to his left. Other flight attendants hurried to the left wing, where they estimated that around 50 passengers were standing directly above the still-spinning engines. And all around its shattered remnants were strewn the survivors, crying out for help before a panorama of utmost devastation. Who was to blame? At 14:30, just 15 minutes after the arrival of the Pan Am 747 in Los Rodeos, bomb squads completed their sweep of Gran Canaria Airport. The impact and resulting fire killed everyone on board KLM 4805 and most of the occupants of Pan Am 1736, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the aircraft. The full load of fuel ignited, and the wreckage slid down the runway for another 300 meters, consumed in flames. Most of the survivors on the Pan Am walked out onto the intact left wing, the side away from the collision, through holes in the fuselage structure. The Tenerife Airport Disaster happened on March 27, 1977, at 5:06 p.m., when two Boeing 747s operating the flights KLM 4805 and Pan Am 1736 collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife, causing the deadliest accident in aviation history that resulted in the loss of 583 crew members and passengers from both flights. MagellanTV is a new kind . Joani Feathers also saw another woman in curlers set. The controller, for his part, interpreted the situation rather differently. Travel infrastructure in the archipelago was more suited to the reality of the 1960s, when the number of tourists had been ten times less, and the system frequently broke down under the strain. Photo: Getty Images Captain Robert Bragg was the co-pilot aboard the Pan Am plane, and was one of the few who survived the collision. Believe it or not, the 27th of March, 1977 began as a normal day. Both crews were acutely aware that if the visibility dropped below the minimums for takeoff, they would be stuck on Tenerife overnight. [1] Unlike most other North Atlantic archipelagoes, the Canary Islands were not uninhabited when Europeans and their armies first arrived in the 1400s. He recounts the worst aviation disaster in history with his first hand experience as a survivor of the Canary Island disaster where the initial death toll included 544 people with only 75 initial survivors. "[4] Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten interrupted the co-pilot's readback with the comment, "We're going. Read about our approach to external linking. The prevailing culture was one of deference to the captain, in which junior crewmembers did not feel empowered to assert themselves if they thought the captain was making a mistake. Four systemic problems in fact set the stage for the Tenerife Disaster. The apparent hesitation of the flight engineer and the first officer to challenge Veldhuyzen van Zanten further. Both airplanes were destroyed in the collision. [65][66], In 2007, the 30th anniversary marked the first time that Dutch and American next-of-kin and aid helpers from Tenerife joined an international commemoration service, held at the Auditorio de Tenerife in Santa Cruz. No, I know that, he said. First Officer Bob Bragg and Flight Engineer George Warns left the airplane to check whether they could fit past the KLM 747, only to return crestfallen: having paced out the distance between the KLMs wing and the edge of the taxiway, they found it to be four meters too narrow. [39] The first aircraft that was able to land was a United States Air Force C-130 transport, which landed on the airport's main taxiway at 12:50 on 29 March. Video, 00:04:59, Up Next. Video, 00:00:45, Snowboarder takes to the slopes of Londonderry, UK weather forecast: Will it snow in your area? When he said Okay, he did not intend to express approval, but was simply filling air as he gathered his thoughts and worked out an instruction that would make sense regardless of whether the plane was stationary or rolling. The 'Queen of Chess' who defeated Kasparov. [31], Due to the fog, neither crew was able to see the other plane on the runway ahead of them. The Olympian who never gave up. It was the worst crash in aviation history. Takeoff was delayed by an extra 35 minutes, allowing time for the fog to settle in; The increased severity of the fire caused by the additional fuel led ultimately to the deaths of all those on board. The accuracy and nuance of these retellings varies, but the thrust of each is the same, reflecting upon the banality of disaster, the unfairness of coincidence, and the randomness of fate. Aviation authorities around the world introduced requirements for standard phrases and a greater emphasis on English as a common working language. The disaster simply added another 583 deaths to the growing pile of evidence that testified against the existing system. The International Tenerife Memorial March 27, 1977, was inaugurated at the Mesa Mota on March 27, 2007. Video, 00:00:11, The man who discovered Harry Potter. Video, 00:00:11The Olympian who never gave up, The man who discovered Harry Potter. [51] These included: The extra fuel taken on by the KLM added several factors: As a consequence of the accident, sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations and to aircraft. How strange it is that the spectacle of mass death can so easily distract us from that fundamental truth. The aircraft was a Boeing 747-121, registration N736PA, named Clipper Victor. But, as it turned out, that also made it a target for those who were not satisfied with the way the islands were run. Nevertheless, when aviation experts in the 1970s expressed their concern about the inevitability of a fatal collision between two jumbo jets, they expected it to occur in New York or London or Los Angeles not at a tiny single-runway airport on an island off the coast of Africa, so far from what were traditionally considered the worlds busiest airways. Engines, pieces of fuselage, and burning jet fuel flew in every direction. Finding no second bomb, the airport was promptly reopened. The investigation concluded that the fundamental cause of the accident was that Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten attempted to take off without clearance. One of the inbound passengers, Robina van Lanschot, who lived on the island with her boyfriend, chose not to re-board the 747, leaving 234 passengers on board.[10][11]. The controller was also struggling to figure out how best to handle the massive 747s. The collision between two Boeing 747s, belonging to KLM and Pan Am, resulted in the deaths of 583 passengers and crew. But even highly experienced pilots can and do make mistakes under pressure. Instead, departing aircraft needed to taxi along the runway to position themselves for takeoff, a procedure known as a backtaxi or backtrack.[4]. Of the 296 people on board, 111 were killed in the crash leaving 185 survivors. The islands have been home to the indigenous Guanches since the first millennium B.C., and even after 500 years of colonization some of their descendants have not forgotten the atrocities committed against their community. The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport[1] (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife. On board the Pan Am plane, agitation grew as flight attendants struggled to attend to the passengers, who had mostly embarked at Los Angeles the previous evening and had by now consumed every ounce of food and drink aboard the 747. The system itself, they said, was at fault in the crash. In the case of the Tenerife disaster, this manifested in the form of self-doubt that prevented the First Officer and Flight Engineer from fully exploring or articulating their own concerns, laboring under a mistaken assumption that the Captain had a better understanding of the situation than they did. [17] While the KLM was backtaxiing on the runway, the controller asked the flight crew to report when it was ready to copy the ATC clearance. Despite frequent spells of low visibility, the airport also didnt have any taxiway markings or a reliable means of measuring runway visibility range. The world wanted to know, but there would be no simple answers. In 1978, a second airport was opened on the island of Tenerife, the new Tenerife South Airport (TFS), which now serves the majority of international tourist flights. In their final report, Spanish investigators placed most of the blame on van Zanten for taking off without clearance, in the process doing away with much of the nuance. Clouds at 600m (2,000ft) above ground level at the nearby coast are at ground level at Los Rodeos. All 248 passengers and crew aboard the KLM plane died, as did 335 passengers and crew aboard the Pan Am plane,[35] primarily due to the fire and explosions resulting from the fuel spilled and ignited in the impact. Captain van Zanten had to give the maneuver his utmost concentration, because the 747 requires 42 meters to turn around, and the runway was only 46 meters wide. The wreckage of Pan Am flight 1736 burns at Los Rodeos Airport as survivors scramble to safety. It appears that KLM's co-pilot was not as certain about take-off clearance as the captain. 61 survivors The crash killed 583 people. In the control tower, the dense fog obscured the controllers view of the wreckage and fire, but the sound of two explosions was unmistakable. And as if that wasnt enough, the controllers thick Spanish accent made it hard for the Pan Am crew to understand what he was saying. The use of ambiguous non-standard phrases by the KLM co-pilot ("We're at take off") and the Tenerife control tower ("OK"). There were, unfortunately, far fewer of them than those who sent out the call were expecting. The large number of interconnected decisions influencing the events at Los Rodeos created a system where no one was completely in control. Six of the Leisure World survivors--Herbert and Lura Waldrip, Mario Tyzbir, Byron and Grace Ellerbrock and Olson--still live there. Alexander was a passenger on Pan Am flight 1477, one of two Boeing 747 jumbo jets that collided on the island of Tenerife in March 1977, killing more than 583 . In March 1977, two jumbo jets collided at Tenerife Airport killing 583 people. A bomb set off by the Canary Islands Independence Movement at Gran Canaria Airport had caused many flights to be diverted to Los Rodeos, including the two aircraft involved in the accident. 1951) and Maritte (b. 61 survivors would make it out alive but almost 600 would not. First Officer Bragg, having felt only a mild impact, reached up to flip the fuel shutoff switches, only to find that the entire overhead panel was gone, and so was the roof it had been attached to. All of these factors helped create a situation in which unambiguous radio communications were essential to safety. [47] The Netherlands Department of Civil Aviation published a response that, while accepting that the KLM captain had taken off "prematurely", argued that he alone should not be blamed for the "mutual misunderstanding" that occurred between the controller and the KLM crew, and that limitations of using radio as a means of communication should have been given greater consideration. When a person is under stress, their perception narrows and their ability to handle multiple simultaneous tasks is impaired. There are few who can claim to have survived the horrors of an airliner crash, but David Alexander is one of those few. The 2005 Glendale train crash occurred on January 26, 2005, at 6:03 a.m. PST, when a Metrolink commuter train collided with a sport utility vehicle [1] that had been parked on the tracks by a suicidal man in an industrial area north of downtown Los Angeles, California, causing the deaths of eleven people and injuring 177. This was one of the first accident investigations to include a study into the contribution of "human factors". Meurs read the flight clearance back to the controller, completing the readback with the statement: "We are now at takeoff. Frequent spells of low visibility, the man who discovered Harry Potter visibility! A system where no one was completely in control, 00:00:11, the man who discovered Potter. 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