More than four decades later, this is still the deadliest accident in aviation history , killing 583 people, injuring dozens and leaving thousands with lifelong psychological trauma.
After several hours of delay, passengers on Pan Am Flight 1736 were finally preparing to take off. In just a few minutes, they will have a much-awaited cruise on the Mediterranean Sea.
The Pan Am plane was slowly moving down the only runway of Tenerife when passengers suddenly saw the plane turn left. Thought that they had accidentally strayed from the road, it turned out that at that time, in the cockpit, Captain Victor Grubbs and co-pilot Robert Bragg were trying their best to steer the plane to a side.
They saw the horror unfold before their eyes. A KLM 747 was going straight down the runway from the opposite side. Captain Grubbs and his crew tried their best to stay out of the way, even if they had to rush out onto the grass.
But they couldn’t.
On March 27, 1977, at 5:06 p.m. local time, Pan Am 1736 and KLM 4805 collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands.
A photo taken just before the crash shows the Pan Am 1736 parked right behind the KLM 4805. (Photo: HistoryNet).
During the following years, much of the public blamed the KLM captain Jacob van Zanten. But behind the scenes, a series of mistakes and amazing coincidences led to this disaster.
Initially, the two planes were not scheduled to arrive in Tenerife, let alone on the same runway at the same time. Both carry passengers to stay at Grand Canary Island. But before the two 747s landed on the island, a group of terrorists bombed the Grand Canary’s Las Palmas airport terminal. As a result, all flights to the island were delayed and diverted to nearby Tenerife.
To pass the time, Captain Grubbs gave the 380 Pan Am passengers a tour of the 747’s cockpit. According to audio recovered from the crash, Mr. Grubbs did not understand why they had to land, while the engine was on. flight can stay in the air because there is plenty of fuel left. This is also considered a coincidence , since if Pan Am had continued to fly, the accident would not have happened.
Meanwhile, 234 passengers aboard the KLM disembarked the plane and disembarked at Tenerife terminal. Captain Van Zanten decided to refuel the plane. But ironically, as soon as the refueling started, the airport was operational again. The KLM had to lie still and wait. But the Pan Am was parked right behind the KLM plane. Because of its size, it couldn’t get ahead to take off first.
The KLM now has more fuel, so it is heavier and needs to run a longer runway to take off. Disaster is now only a few minutes away.
Meanwhile, the fog began to thicken, visibility decreased rapidly.
Before 5pm, the control center allowed KLM to start the engines and enter the runway. Because of a technical error in communication between the crew and the control center, the Pan Am missed the exit, and the KLM turned 180 degrees on the very runway where the Pan Am was moving. And this airport has no ground radar.
“Prepare to take off. I’ll call you,” the voice at the checkpoint became the most misunderstood statement in aviation history. Captain Van Zanten only heard the word “take off” . As KLM accelerated, co-pilot Schreuder asked: “Is Pan Am still on the runway?” but Van Zanten did not hear the last precious moments clearly.
The horror happened when the Pan Am plane suddenly appeared out of the fog. Van Zanten tried his best to get the plane to take off into the air but failed. The tail of the plane made a 20m deep groove on the runway. The collision killed all passengers on board KLM 4805 and most on Pan Am 1736 .
The wreckage of Pan Am 1736 was scattered across the Los Rodeos runway. (Photo: PA/Getty Images).
The scene outside the plane was extremely chaotic, with flames billowing and huge columns of black smoke rising from the Pan Am plane. The wreckage of KLM 4805 engulfed in flames 365 meters from the runway. Despite their own injuries, Pan Am’s crew and four surviving crew members did their best to guide the surviving passengers to safety.
In the years following the accident in Tenerife, the island’s authorities completed a new airport with ground radar. Also since the Tenerife disaster , the international aviation industry has changed forever to prevent another similar disaster.