Some 583 people died or were mortally injured on March 27th 1977 after two Boeing 747 jumbo jets collided on a runway at Los Rodeos airport, Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, making this the world’s worst civil aviation disaster. With 583 fatalities, the crash remains the deadliest accident in aviation history. All 248 aboard the fully fuelled KLM flight were killed. There were also 335 fatalities and 61 survivors from the Pan Am flight, which was struck along its spine by the KLM’s landing gear, under-belly and four engines.

The two 747s were stuck at Los Rodeos Airport for a few hours and during that time the weather became rainy and foggy. Passengers were becoming restless and the captains were anxious to get in the air again by the time they were finally slated for takeoff. There was a bit of

confusion because there were so many large aircraft and the airport in Tenerife was not well equipped for these large planes. There was also only one runway at the airport, so only one of these planes could take off at a time.

Because of the confusion, a garbled radio transmission and some mistakes made by both captains, by the time the two planes were in position to take off they were facing each other on the airport’s single runway. Captain Victor Grubbs had been given clearance for takeoff and Captain van Zanten believed that he had been given clearance because of a miscommunication that was not entirely his fault. By the time the two men noticed that they were directing these two huge aircraft straight at each other, it was too late.

Captain Victor Grubbs tried to steer out of the way of the other aircraft and Captain Jacob van Zanten attempted to pull his aircraft into a steep liftoff. Unfortunately, the tail end of the KLM 747 ripped into the Pan Am 747, wreaking havoc on its fuselage. The KLM 747 subsequently crashed back down to the runway and slid for roughly 1,000 feet. All 234 passengers and 14 crew members that were on board were killed. A fire following the crash completely destroyed the aircraft.

The Pan Am 747 also caught fire; 256 passengers were killed during and immediately after the accident. Nine died of their injuries later, and 56 passengers survived the wreck. Nine crew members were killed, and nine survived. That brings the death toll of the Tenerife Airport Disaster to 522. The only witnesses to the crash were on board the two doomed aircraft.

In the end, Captain Jacob van Zanten was found responsible for the crash. However, there were a number of factors that contributed to the crash, which were out of his control. For example, both 747s transmitted a radio message at the same time, effectively canceling each other out. Also, he believed that he had clearance for take off because traffic control used the term OK and didn’t clarify what they were saying OK to. Since that time, standards for radio terminology have changed and thankfully an accident this deadly has not occurred since.

You can download the tour KMZ file3D animated tour of the 1977 Tenerife Airport disaster for Google Earth.

video:

Tenerife Disaster 1977- The Worst Aviation Disaster In History Part

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