Dunst / Fog (Night)At 17:06 Greenwich Mean Time (local time), March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 jet aircraft collided with each other on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife. Pan Am Flight 1736 was taxiing down the airport’s single runway carrying 380 passengers when it was struck at high speed by KLM Flight 4805, which was carrying 234 passengers and was using the same runway to take off. 583 passengers were killed when the KLM jet tore the Pan Am plane almost completely in half, destroying both aircraft.
How did it happen?
A serious of events conspired to crowd the runways at Tenerife that evening. A bomb went off at nearby Las Palmas Airport, which caused extra traffic to be diverted to Los Rodeos. Since the airport was small, not equipped with ground radar, and not used to handling a large number of planes, air traffic control became confused and planes were forced to park on the taxiway. This obligated aircraft to use the single landing strip for both taxiing and takeoffs / landings. A fog settled over the island, severely restricting visibility for both the tower and the KLM plane, which was taxiing at the time. The Pan Am plane was also taxiing on the same runway, and missed their turn-off on the third taxiway. Unclear communication between the tower and the KLM flight caused the Dutch captain to assume he had been granted permission for take-off, and interference caused him to miss the transmission from the Pan Am flight that they were still taxiing down the runway. The KLM captain accelerated directly toward the plane in front of him.
Aftermath
At the time of impact, the KLM plane had just achieved flight, was traveling at 304 km/h, and had one of its engines torn off by the fuselage of the Pan Am plane. It immediately impacted with terrain 150 meters past the location of the initial collision. The plane settled on the ground 300 meters past the point of impact. There were no survivors on the KLM flight. 56 passengers survived in the Pan Am jet, in addition to the captain, first office, flight engineer and 2 other crew members. Firefighters arrived on the scene of the KLM wreck but due to the fog, they did not know that a second plane had been involved in the incident, and Pan Am survivors were left to fend for themselves.
Further Reading
- http://www.panamair.org/accidents/victor.htm - Pan Am page describing the accident in detail
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/planecrash/ - Nova recreation of the Tenerife disaster
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