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A Brief History of: The Tenerife Airport Disaster, a dark day for Aviation (Documentary)

Plainly Difficult

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#Aircrashinvestigation #disaster

On 27 March, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736 respectively, collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

Resulting in 583 fatalities, the Tenerife airport disaster is the deadliest in aviation history.

The Air crash investigation would discover a multitude of failures all of which led to the fateful accident.

Heres another couple of videos on the subject by two other great youtubers:

Qxir: Worst Air Disaster in History | Last Moments

Fascinating Horror: The Tenerife Airport Disaster | A Short Do...

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Sources:

https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/en/re...

http://www.project-tenerife.com/neder...

https://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ll_mai...

By Rob Russell - PAA 747 N736PA 76_837, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

By clipperarctic - KLM 747, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

By MartinD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

By Aisano - Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

By Sir James - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

By Aisano - Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

20 Comments

@PlainlyDifficult Creator 4 years ago Pinned

Want to see more aviation disasters let me know in the comments 👇

@Naomi-yc4fp 4 years ago

This incident really is the “worst case scenario”

@redsable6119 4 years ago

All regulations are written in blood. Should not be forgotten.

@mrkipling2201 4 years ago

There was a woman from the KLM plane who got off the plane at Tenerife and stayed there because her boyfriend lived there. Talk about lucky. Sadly her 2 friends got back on the KLM even though she asked them to stay with her.

@marclowe724 4 years ago

Another ironic twist of luck: Added weight lengthens take off distance. If the KLM had not refueled then there's a better chance that he would have cleared the Pan Am.

@GorgeDawes 4 years ago

One minor linguistic point, Van Zanten’s “oh, yes” on being questioned by the Flight Engineer as to whether the Pan Am was clear of the runway was actually the word “jawel”. This is a contradictory form of yes in Dutch, implying that he was dismissing his colleague’s concern and that there was no thought in his mind that the runway was not clear.
I’m delighted to see that PD didn’t fall into the trap of discussing whether the Pan Am flight was at fault for taking the “fourth”exit from the runway rather than the “third”. The simple fact was that they had not reported clear of the runway so there was no reason for anyone to think that they were anywhere other than where they were i.e. still on the runway.

@knickohr01 4 years ago

Fun fact: In german the Swiss Cheese Model is called "Verkettung unglücklicher Umstände" which roughly translates to "chain of unfortunate circumstances" and I think this is another great description, because a chain can be broken by removing one segment, which would have prevented the disaster.

@Soundbrigade 4 years ago

I think it was Kelsey, the 74Gear pilot who said that this catastrophy changed how pilots and ATCs communicated, hence the ROGER instead of the OK, always using the airplane ID, always repeating the answers to the ATC, etc just to avoid misunderstanding and confusion.
It's interesting to learn that investigations are as much to give recommendations to step up the security work as much as finding the cause of an accident.

@Sir_Soysauce 4 years ago

The cheese explanation definitely resonates with a lot of the disasters that you have covered. It’s usually the ‘perfect storm’ event that causes these issues.

@Nadia1989 4 years ago (edited)

Remember, this accident happened before the days of CRM, where hierarchy and seniority were more important than team dynamics.

@Dragonblaster1 4 years ago

I'm an auditor and quality professional. Whenever I give training on root cause analysis, I always include this as an example. I gave a training course last month, and people were both amazed and horrified - but I bet they never forget it.

@Lazy_Tim 4 years ago

I still think the KLM pilot was mostly at fault. Impatient to say the least.

@MewMewMinou13 4 years ago

This is the most tragic and impactful case of "get there-itis" ever and my heart goes out to the famlies of loved ones lost that day. I can't imagine coming upon this scene either; just unimaginable to see two jumbos collide, especially at an airport that normally . Hopefully we never have another accident this serious. Also the swiss cheese example is the best visualization i've ever seen of how this sort of accident happens!

@Mokounibbols 4 years ago

A saying one of our pilots here has is, "All takeoffs are optional, all landings are mandatory."
There is also the old Navy aviation saying that, "the superior pilot uses his superior judgment to save him from having to resort to his superior skills."

@renatosilva1480 4 years ago

So many analogies for 'meet conditions': Perfect storm, stars line up, domino effect... The swiss cheese analogy is new to me, so thank you for the history and analogy!!

@monticore1626 4 years ago

“Background noise could be heard from a football game being listened to” wait so your telling me that the people in ATC were watching FOOTBALL while giving instructions to aircraft at the most critical stage of any flight.

@daniellefelice7368 4 years ago (edited)

One women from KLM survived, she didn’t reboard the plane because she lived on that island and wanted to hang out with her boyfriend

@erictaylor5462 4 years ago

15:00 It is interesting that the airline wanted him to help investigate the accident, considering he already knew exactly what had happened, but he was no longer in a position to explain it to anyone.
He was 100% at fault for the accident, having taken off without clearance.