The Tenerife Airport Disaster was an infamous event that resulted in many fatalities. Dave shares the details of the event, mistakes, and the moments leading up to this fatal collision.
“Back in March 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway on the Spanish Island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This remains the deadliest aircraft accident in aviation history.
“The original destination for both airplanes was Gran Canaria, also in the Canary Islands. However, there was a terrorist attack which caused a lot of flights to be diverted over to Los Rodeos airport, which included the two airplanes involved in this accident. That airport was a smaller regional airport, with a single runway and a single taxiway. It's not at all used to having several large airplanes on the tarmac. The airport quickly became congested with parked airplanes blocking the only taxiway and departing aircraft had to use the runway instead to taxi on.
“To add to the confusion, visibility was terrible for pilots and the control tower through the fog. It was a great deal with added pressure on everybody, including the pilots and control tower. Gran Canaria finally became open again and both the KLM and the Pan American were anxious to depart. The tower instructed the KLM crew to back taxi down the runway and make a 180 degree turn to get into takeoff position.
“Shortly afterwards, they instructed the Pan American 747 to follow the KLM, down the same runway and exit on a secondary taxi way to the left and then use the parallel taxiway. The Pan Am crew had rapidly deteriorating visibility down to about 100 yards. It couldn't see anything besides the runway that was right in front of them as they taxi.
“The Pan Am crew missed the third taxiway that they're instructed to depart the runway on and proceeded down towards the fourth taxiway. Meanwhile, the KLM plane completed its 180 degree turn and lined up on runway three zero. The first officer radioed the tower that they were ready for takeoff and awaiting their ATC, which is an air traffic control clearance, not a clearance for takeoff. The KLM crew then received their ATC clearance that specified the route that the aircraft was to follow after takeoff, but they were not cleared for takeoff. Somehow they thought they were.
“The first officer said ‘We are now at take off.’ The controller who couldn't see the runway or the airplanes through the fog. He said, ‘Okay, standby for takeoff. I will call you.’ Pan American at the same time made a transmission and said, ‘We're still taxing down the runway clipper 1736.’ During simultaneous transmissions, all you hear is a long shrill sound. So the KLM crew missed a crucial portion of the tower's response, which was ‘Standby I will call you.’ All they heard was the ‘okay’ at the beginning of it They did not hear Pan America's transmission saying ‘We're still taxing down the runway clipper 1736.’
“Either message, if the KLM cockpit crew heard it, would have alerted the crew to the situation and given them time to reject the takeoff attempt. Due to the fog, now neither crew was able to see the other aircraft on the runway in front of them and they went ahead and barreled down the runway for takeoff. The KLM crew did not see the Pan American crew nor did the Pan American crew see the KLM airliner until it was way too late. KLM Captain tried to clear overhead the Pan American and it was way too late to do that. They collided, and there were 583 fatalities with only 61 survivors.
“As a consequence of this accident, sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations and aviation authorities around the world required standard phraseology in aviation. Standard phraseology is critical.”
For more information, check out the Flight Talk episode "Communicate or Crash" on our front page or your favorite podcast platform.
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