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Located on the center of the picture is Mesa Mota mountain, where yesterday, the monument in memory of all the victims of the accident was inaugurated.Yesterday, on the 30th Anniversary of the Tenerife Disaster on March 27th, 1977, Tenerife paid homage to the victims of the accident at Los Rodeos. Families of the those who died, as well as survivors of the tragedy and members of the island's authorities, celebrated a memorial service at the Auditorio de Tenerife. Karen Tafuri, who lost her mother, Jeanne Wilder, in the crash, spoke of her experience, in representation of victims from the United States. While, Jan Groenewoud, President of the Foundation for families of the victims, remembered the seven people - among them, both of his parents and two sisters - that he lost on that date.

La hija de una víctima de Los Rodeos: "La catástrofe nos ha unido y nos tendrá vinculados para siempre"
Tenerife conmemora la tragedia de Los Rodeos


The 583 victims now have their Stairway to Heaven

An emotional homage was paid to the 583 victims of the crash yesterday afternoon, when De Wenteltrap (Spiral Staircase) memorial was inaugurated on the Mesa Mota mountain in La Laguna, Tenerife, overlooking the airport and site of the disaster.

The various reports in the local press carry numerous photos from the day's events:
Las 583 víctimas del accidente de Los Rodeos ya tienen su escalera al cielo
Un acto de homenaje y esperanza une a familiares de víctimas de Los Rodeos
Penas compartidas en Los Rodeos

It was also revealed yesterday, that the Dutch artist, Rudi van de Wint, who designed the over 18 metres tall monument, sadly died shortly after completing it.


Air Traffic Controller speaks to the media for the first time

Fernando Azcúnaga, who was one of the three controllers on duty in the tower at Los Rodeos on that fateful day in 1977, has spoken to the media for the first time in these 30 years. Previously, he had refused to speak publicly, but finally conceded on the request of his wife. The full text of an interview appears (in Spanish) in La Opinión, where Azcúnaga talks of his frustration at not having been able to do anything.

Now 71 and retired in 2000, Azcúnaga is married and father of four children (one of whom died in a traffic accident). He now lives in Tegueste, in the north of Tenerife and runs a parquet flooring company. Although he considers himself a strong person, Azcúnaga tells how the disaster changed his character and how he felt very saddened. "It was not my fault, but I was implicated.", he says. The accident still moves him enormously and it is something he carries in his heart.

The insurance companies, he adds, harassed him a lot in the aftermath of the crash. "There were a load of insurance companies and the easiest for them would be to put the blame on the controller so that everything would be paid by the Spanish Government", he says. (In 1977, ATC was still handled by the military in Spain.)

He has also spoken out about the rumour, reported on various occasions and included in certain documentaries, that the controllers were listening to a football match on the radio. This, Azcúnaga considers absurd. For one thing, Air Traffic Controllers work with headphones on, secondly, there is the evidence that in none of the tapes is there any sound of a goal or anything of the like.

Fernando Azcúnaga Aaransay: "Fue muy frustrante no poder hacer nada"


Runway Safety Debated on Anniversary of Deadly Crash

Meanwhile yesterday, Robert Bragg, former Pan American World Airlines co-pilot, spoke to the National Transportation Safety Board Tuesday at a safety forum in Washington, D.C., to recall the moment when his 747 was taxiing at Los Rodeos Airport and a KLM jumbo jet came barreling down the runway for its takeoff.

Runway Safety Debated on Anniversary of Deadly Crash


Tenerife will certainly never forget this disaster. Yesterday alone, there were no less than two documentaries on the crash - with some gruesome footage I had not previously seen - shown on just one local TV station, TVCanaria, as well as news coverage of the memorial services in every news report and magazine program.

But I also understand that having all the information is one of the ways one can deal with this event and that many people are still looking for this information (more than 300 to this one page here yesterday, alone), therefore, here are some more items I have found in my recent searches and that may be of use of interest to you:


Documents from the Investigation

For those who read Spanish, Canarias24Horas are offering six PDF documents to download, which are all of the documents from the Spanish investigation into the accident, including; the analysis, diagrams, the investigators' conclusions, flight plans from both aircraft and the official meteorological report from 27 March 1977.

See the following report for downloads: 30 años después les mostramos los documentos de la investigación del accidente de Los Rodeos


Seconds From Disaster Crash of the Century

Three clips from National Geographic Channel's Seconds From Disaster series.



See also: Tenerife Disaster Part 1 and Tenerife Disaster Part 2

This episode in the series reenacts the Tenerife disaster that took place at 17:06 local time on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 airliners collided at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, killing 583 people.

Link to video for feed readers


NOVA: The Deadliest Plane Crash
This NOVA documentary covers the disaster on March 27, 1977, on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, when the two fully loaded 747 jumbo jets collided on a fogbound runway, killing 583 people in what is still the deadliest crash in aviation history.

More information on the feature can be found here and, you can read a transcript of the The Deadliest Plane Crash here.


Further related articles and links:
Frustration, fog and fire - how a terrorist bomb blast 100 kilometers away led to the greatest disaster in aviation history, taking the lives of 583 innocent people.
Bethene Miller Moore -- survived worst plane crash in history
History's worst aviation accident turned on twists of fate
'...What's he doing? He'll kill us all!' (Article from TIME, dated Monday, Apr. 11, 1977)
No Place for an Ego

Project-Tenerife.com
TenerifeCrash.com


Anecdote

Much has already been written about the entire chain of events and circumstances that added up to allow this accident to happen, any one of which, if it hadn't occurred might have helped to prevent it from doing so ... If only it hadn't been foggy, if only there had been lights on the runway, ground radar (which Los Rodeos does now have), if only there hadn't been a terrorist bomb in Gran Canaria ...

One could go back to "if only the Wright Brothers hadn't discovered flight."

Nevertheless, there is one further piece of anecdotal information that I found at the foot of this article about the crash. I have no point of reference to be able to confirm this information, but it is certainly ironic, if not a bit creepy, if it is indeed fact and, while it sounds like the kind of story that the English might tell about "Spanish builders", the thing is, I have only ever read this report in Spanish, it says:

During the Second World War, Hitler insisted to Franco's regime on the construction of an aerodrome in Tenerife to give cover for his troops in North Africa. German technicians were sent to initiate studies for the design of the airport, which were later presented to the Spanish authorities. These latter decided to postpone the construction, but they held onto the plans made by the Germans, who in those days were considered as the experts in airport design and construction.

Some years later, after the end of the war, the Spanish authorities decided that it was time to construct the airport in Tenerife, for which they decided to resort to the valuable documents provided by the Germans. Amongst these was a map of the area, on which was clearly marked a great big red cross. The Spanish "supposed" that this marked the ideal location for the airport and, commenced its construction based on the German maps. What they did not know, is that the big red cross indicated the area where an airport should never be built.

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A recent press release informs that, the Foundation for the Surviving Relatives of the Tenerife Disaster in the Netherlands needs to inform the survivors and the surviving relatives of the passengers and crew who lost their lives in order to offer them the opportunity to be present on March 27, 2007, for the first-ever international memorial service and the opening of the monument, exactly 30 years after the disaster.

Visit the website for additional information: http://www.tenerife-memorial.org

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Overview of the Mesa Mota mountain close to Los Rodeos, where the monument in memory of the victims of the accident will be inaugurated on March 27th.B. N. Sullivan of Aircrew Buzz reports that "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold a one-day forum on March 27, 2007, focusing on airport runway incursions and accidents, and potential safety solutions.

The Runway Safety Forum is scheduled to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1977 runway collision at Tenerife, an accident that took the lives of 583 people on board two 747s, operated by Pan American World Airways and KLM. Capt. Robert Bragg, who was the First Officer on the Pan Am aircraft involved in the collision, will be a speaker at the Forum."

If you're in and around Washington D.C., in the United States, it is worthy of note that the public are invited to attend.

Those of us who are not, might be interested in the live and archived webcast of the forum will be available on the Board's website at www.ntsb.gov.

You'll also notice a link in that report to Robert Bragg speaks, which is, I think, a transcript from the Tenerife Crash DVD. In it, Bragg describes moment by moment what it was like to be a part of the worst disaster of civil aviation history.

This is something that I had not read before and though, at times, it's maybe "too much information", it does help greatly to understand what happened.

There is also a new photo, dated February 24, 2007 (shown above) from Captain Manuel Luis Ramos Garcia - and dedicated to Robert Bragg - it shows the Mesa Mota mountain close to Los Rodeos airport, where the monument in memory of all the victims of the accident will be inaugurated also on March 27th.

Via Google, I also discovered (not sure if I should have, mind you) a PDF pamphlet about the management of the Candelaria Hospital in Tenerife. On page 19 of the 20 page document, there are photos of Robert Bragg on his 2004 visit, when he presented a plaque to the hospital in thanks for their assistance in 1977.

News release about the Runway Safety Forum Via: Aircrew Buzz

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This report by Canarias24horas, related to the accident on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747's collided on the runway of Tenerife's Los Rodeos airport, killing 583, says that uranio empobrecido (depleted uranium) (Uranium-238) had been employed in the construction of the first 550 Boeing 747's of the type that were involved in the crash.

(Depleted uranium is also used as a nuclear fuel in hydrogen bombs.)

They go on to say that the exact quantity of Uranium-238 at the Tenerife site is still not known, but it was likely to be somewhere between 300 and 1,500 kilos in each aircraft. Boeing say that they began replacing the uranium with tungsten in the early 80's, but while it was replaced in the wings, it remained in the rudder.

The problem, they add, is that there was fire, as depleted uranium oxidizes at temperatures above 500 degrees centigrade, losing up to 70% of the material and combining with the oxygen in the atmosphere to convert into uranium dioxide.

According to Los Verdes (The Greens), in Tenerife, the presence of depleted uranium in the Boeing 747's that crashed at Los Rodeos was known from a conference given by Alfredo Embid and Alfonso del Val on April 19th, 1979, entitled "La energía nuclear a debate" (Nuclear energy in debate). Embid had been a medical student at the University of La Laguna at the time of the accident and many of his companions had gone to the site to help with collecting the bodies of the dead.

The effects of exposure have been well documented under Gulf War syndrome.

In the case of the accident at Los Rodeos, with a hypothetical quantity of up to three tons of depleted uranium, the material had to have been removed by special operatives and the existence and results must be recorded in the corresponding reports. (Given the quantity of Uranium-238, the world's worst airline disaster, should also be considered as the second worst radioactive contamination in Spain.)

The Greens are now asking that those reports be declassified and published.

(What the article doesn't mention, but which are questions that are raised in my head, is what about the exposure to the survivors of the crash and what long-term effects would this contamination have on the site, as well as to the atmosphere?)

A 30 años del accidente no se conoce la sustancia radiactiva que respiraron los equipos de rescate

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This month marks the 30th anniversary of the world's most deadly airline disaster, when two 747's collided on a foggy runway in the Canary Islands in the eastern Atlantic; 583 people died. KSL in Salt Lake City report that, "A Park City woman lost her mother in that accident and is now trying to spread the word that a special memorial service is planned later this month near the crash site."

Memorial Service Will Mark Anniversary of Deadly Plane Crash

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The news of the death of Playmate Anna Nicole Smith, seems to have sparked discussion about about the many Playmates who have made the headlines for their untimely deaths.

In this, I suppose, the kind of lifestyle a Playmate leads, generally tends towards to more adventure and more risk.

However, until a commenter pointed it out, I had not been aware that someone with "celebrity status" had died in the runway collision at Tenerife in 1977.

My personal view is that "having a name" does not make her death any greater, nor lesser, loss than that of any of the other 580+ people who perished.

But, for the curious, here is the article, which talks about the grisly club of Playmates who didn't live to age 50, Anna Nicole joins a macabre list and which lists, "Eve Meyer, a 1955 Playmate, was one of more than 550 people killed when two airliners collided on takeoff at Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977. She was 46."

Eve Meyer (born December 13, 1928 in Griffin, Georgia, died March 27, 1977) was an American pin-up model, motion picture actor and, later, film producer. Much of her work was done in conjunction with exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer to whom she was married from April 2, 1952 until 1969.

The image of Eve Meyer above, which I found on Flickr, was most probably taken by husband Russ Meyer. This site, which has (not safe for work: nekkid boobies) many examples of his work, including this one of Eve, posing on the same bed.

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Work at the Mesa Mota mountain site
Click to enlarge
Photo: © 2007 Foundation Relatives Victims Tenerife, AmsterdamThe Foundation Relatives Victims Tenerife yesterday announced they have donated the International Tenerife Memorial to the island's authorities. The Cabildo accepted the monument with gratitude: an artwork 18 metres tall designed by the Dutch artist Rudi van de Wint. Construction of the base for the International Tenerife Memorial is now underway and running according to plan. The Corten steel monument arrived on the Canary island of Tenerife unharmed at the end of January, aboard ship from Flushing (Vlissingen).


'De Wenteltrap' International Tenerife Memorial
Click to enlarge
Photo: PR Newswire Photo ServiceThe artwork, entitled 'De Wenteltrap' (literally translated, spiral staircase) - The spiral theme is a symbol of infinity more - will serve as a monument to commemorate all the victims of the largest disaster in the history of civil aviation, which occurred on March 27, 1977 at Los Rodeos airport, Tenerife-Norte (TFN). KLM Boeing 747 flight number KL4805 crashed on the runway into a Boeing 747 of Pan American Airlines (Pan Am 1736). All 248 people aboard the KLM aircraft died; 335 of the 396 aboard the Pan Am aircraft perished, with 61 survivors.

The International Tenerife Memorial is being sited on the Mesa Mota mountain, in the municipality of San Cristobal de la Laguna. On March 27, 2007 the unique artwork monument will be unveiled in the presence of Spanish, American and Dutch surviving relatives and government representatives.

Prior to the formal dedication, for the first time since the disaster occurred 30 years ago there will be an international memorial service in the Auditorio de Tenerife, in the port of the capital, Santa Cruz. Dutch and Spanish heads of state have been invited to both ceremonies.

Full Release | More images can be found on the Association's website

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The Tenerife Island Corporation has accepted the donation of a monument to commemorate the fatal accident that occurred at Tenerife's northern airport of Los Rodeos, 30 years ago this year, on March 27, 1977, report ABC.

The association of the Dutch families who lost loved ones in the crash have supported the creation of the monument, made by a prestigious sculptor from The Netherlands (they didn't give a name) and which is already on the island.

Una escultura conmemorará los 30 años desde el accidente aéreo de Los Rodeos

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Australian TV, it seems, is showing a documentary of the lead up to the world's deadliest plane crash (the Tenerife disaster: Collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's at Tenerife. Sunday, March 27, 1977) in all its disastrous detail, today. Judy Adamson, who reviewed the documentary says, "The filmmakers don't overdramatise or veer into sentimentality as they interview survivors, but apart from wailing, "Oh, the humanity", you can't help wondering what anyone can gain by watching almost two hours of tragedy relived for the cameras."

Crash of the Century

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A report from Time Magazine, From hurricanes to 9/11: What the science of evacuation reveals about how humans behave in the worst of times, offers sad, but interesting insights into the survival rates of disasters, such as the March 1977 runway collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's at Tenerife.

As it turns out, the people on the Pan Am 747 had at least 60 sec. to flee before fire engulfed the plane. But of the 396 people on board, 326 were killed.

One reason that more did not survive was because they acted upon instinct - which was to freeze. Had more done, as one man who did survive the Tenerife crash and whose story is recounted in this article, had done - studied the 747's safety diagram and identified the closest exit - then their instinct, with the right information, would have been to act in an entirely different manner.

Actually, it makes perfect sense when you read it - and we all should.

We can't help being human. What we should do, whenever we are in new and different surroundings, not just on planes, is to pay more attention to the safety procedures, RTFM and familiarize ourselves. We can't guess how we will react in a real emergency, but we can increase the chances of it being the right way.

How to Get Out Alive

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A program being tested at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport could help prevent deadly runway accidents. Many aviation officials consider it the most dangerous part of a plane trip: moving across a runway just as another aircraft is taking off. The worst runway incursion occurred in March 1977, when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, collided with a Pan Am 747 coming from the other end of the runway.

Runway incursions happen far more frequently than you might like to think about too - the U.S. had 324 incursions in the fiscal year that ended last fall, including three close calls between commercial jets that were deemed the most serious, according to FAA data. That figure had dropped from 424 incursions in 2000. The system uses a series of computerized lights embedded along a runway to signal pilots and, they say, "It's more useful than the way they now get information – by looking out a cockpit window or relying on controllers."

Lighting the way

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Whilst much has been written about the March 1997 crash at Tenerife's Los Rodeos airport - and not to worry anyone here - but did you know that four air crashes had occurred on the island since 1965?

And, three of them, lamentably, make it into the Top 100 Aviation Disasters. Those three, in order of severity, are:

March 27 1977 - 583 killed - KLM Boeing 747-206B collides with Pan Am Boeing 747-121 on the runway at Tenerife's Los Rodeos Airport.

December 3 1972 - 155 killed - Spantax Covair 990-30A-5 Coronado, carrying West German tourists, lost control on take-off from Tenerife's Los Rodeos Airport.

April 25 1980 - 146 fatalities - Dan-Air Services B-727-46 flying from Manchester crashed into a mountain south of Tenerife's Los Rodeos Airport on approach.

All three accidents happened in fog conditions.

Tenerife's Los Rodeos airport is situated on a 2,000-feet-high plateau, which is subject to cloud descent and sudden dangerous crosswinds, say the British Council.

Of course, it should be remembered that not only does Tenerife now have another, much larger, airport (Reina Sofia) on the south of the island that enjoys much better weather conditions and is further from mountains, an awful lot has changed in the last 26 years, since the date of the last major accident to occur at Los Rodeos.

Logic, if not actual reports, tells us that radar and communications will have come on leaps and bounds since then, so that taking off or landing, even if Los Rodeos is prone to fog (and it is), is no longer quite the danger it was over a quarter of a century ago.

Tenerife Air Traffic Control was implicated (giving wrong directions) in the 1980 Dan Air crash, according to the accident report referred to in comments here, although, neither they, nor the airport itself were found to be to blame in the other two major crashes.

It seems wrong that they are never allowed to "live it down", when this is the proven case. Yes, there are still people who fear flying there. There are those too who think it a disgrace that there is no memorial to crash victims at the airport and accuse the Tenerife authorities of wanting to forget. Whom would it help? Certainly not passengers passing through!

Of course, four crashes is four crashes too many, but the world is not perfect. Four crashes in over 40 years, when, for instance, you take into account the fact that Tenerife's airports combined are set to handle over 73,000 flights during this year's seven month summer season alone, puts the matter into a much better perspective, I think.

Tenerife / Los Rodeos, SPAIN Weather

Tags: Tenerife, Canary Islands, Canarias

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Associated Press (via Yahoo News) reminded me that today is the 29th anniversary of the Tenerife disaster, which occurred on Sunday, March 27, 1977. The collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's at a foggy Los Rodeos Airport on the north of Tenerife, in which a total of 583 people lost their lives, is still the world's worst aviation accident.

Recently, after finding more material, including the video of the reconstruction of the crash, made by National Geographic, I updated my report on the accident. It never fails to amaze me that, even 29 years on, there is so much interest in the disaster. Every single day, the largest number of search queries used to find this site are related to that accident on the Tenerife runway. Is this an unhealthy preoccupation with the tragic, or born out of a fear of flying? I guess we'll never know, however, I hope that having the facts to hand will help.

On This Day 1977: Runway collision kills 583

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Tenerife disaster: Collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's at Tenerife. Sunday, March 27, 1977.

Los Rodeos, Tenerife's North airport is, unfortunately, famous for the fateful accident which occurred on March 27, 1977, in which 583 people died when KLM and Pan Am 747s collided on a crowded, foggy runway in Tenerife, Canary Islands. The incident remains the world's worst aviation accident in history.

Many contributing factors, lead up to the crash, but the probable cause, cited by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA, 1978), was the KLM pilot taking off without takeoff clearance.



The wreckage of KLM Boeing 747 PH-BUFWhat happened on the Tenerife runway?

Quite simply put, the KLM attempted takeoff, even though the Pan Am was still on the runway and the KLM had not received clearance for takeoff. The Pan Am tried to get out of the way and the KLM tried to climb over, but the latter ended belly up after dragging it's tail on the ground. The lower fuselage of the KLM plane hit the upper fuselage of the Pan Am plane, ripping apart the center of the Pan Am jet nearly directly above the wing.


Pan Am 1736 ablaze after its collision with KLM 4805Whilst I have no intention of quoting chapter and verse - you can check all the background information I've used to write this summary, via the links cited below - here is quick rundown of the various possible contributing factors:

1. Neither plane should have been at Los Rodeos in the first place, which was not used to handling the traffic it had that day. They should have been in Gran Canaria, but a terrorist bomb attack by Canary Island separatists, The Canary Islands Independence Movement, closed the airport there.

2. There was fog with poor visibility at Los Rodeos. That didn't help anyone, least of all the Pan Am who was looking for a suitable exit off the runway. The one they had been advised to take, seems an impossible turn for a 747.

3. The pilot of the KLM, Captain van Zanten, their "top man", seems to have been in some considerable hurry to get going and appears to have held a level of authority that subordinates did not dare challenge with the necessary strength.

4. Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcript showed that the KLM pilot was convinced that he had been cleared for takeoff, while the Tenerife control tower was certain that the KLM 747 was stationary at the end of the runway and awaiting takeoff clearance.

5. Reading the transcript of the radio transmissions, exchanges between the tower and the planes were ambiguous at best. One contributing factor to the accident at Tenerife was the involved parties’ use of non-standard phraseology during the critical moments leading up to the accident.

6. The crucial communication that might have prevented the KLM from taking off was lost in radio squelch. The congestion that results from using a single channel radiotelephone system can also lead to communications which are either missed or blocked by the transmissions of other users (Kerns, 1991, 1999). This problem of blocked transmissions was apparent in the runway collision at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, when the air traffic controller and the Pan Am pilot both tried to contact the KLM pilot at the same time.

Another article, from Wikipedia, which discusses the causes in more detail, also highlights one of the positive things to come out of the Tenerife air disaster: sweeping changes made to international airline regulations.

With no small amount of irony, commercial aviation is safer today because of that terrible day in 1977, because, "It was made a worldwide rule that all control towers and pilot crews had to use English standard phrases." Actually, I found it surprising that was introduced so recently. My father had trained RAF pilots in communications during WWII, but they would all have been British and probably flying Spitfires, i.e. men for whom standard English phrases were already their everyday language.

The other positive move, of course, was building Reina Sofia airport on the south of the island of Tenerife, which started operating in 1978. It was already under construction when the Pan Am/KLM crash occurred and, it should be highlighted, therefore, was not built merely out of the aftermath. Previously, passengers had faced a very rough two hour journey by coach from Los Rodeos to the south, so it was more a tourism concern to build the Reina Sofia airport.

My reason for researching this disaster in detail, is because I think that being aware of the facts takes away much of the fear - fear of the unknown - that can lead, ultimately, to a fear of flying. Fortunately, it is a fear I have never had.

In 1980, I had flown from London's Heathrow International Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on a Pan Am Flight 103. Yes, the same flight that was blown up over Lockerbie in 1988. In fact, I am almost certain that we flew on the same plane, "Maid of the Seas", so, I am aware to a small extent of the feeling of "There, but for the grace of God, go I".

And, as with most information about Tenerife, there is more speculation, myth and legend published about this crash than there are plain, hard facts. Whilst I can't claim to know the full story either, I do hope to distinguish here between items that can be verified and those which cannot.

What is certain is that Tenerife doesn't have a specially dangerous airport and, in any case, if you are arriving on a tourist charter flight you are far more likely to come to the south airport, not the north one where the accident occurred.

Further reading on the 1977 Disaster:

Air Disaster by Job, Tesch
Fatefully, PanAm's protesting transmission conflicted with the controller's instruction to KLM.

Fatal Words by Steven Cushing. On March 27, 1977, 583 people died when KLM and Pan Am 747s collided on a crowded, foggy runway in Tenerife, the Canary Islands. The cause, a miscommunication between the pilot and the air traffic controller.

Fasten Your Seat Belts! History and Heroism in...
by Valerie Lester. Includes the story about flight attendant, Dorothy Kelley, who survived the collision. An absolutely horrifying experience reading, which describes the disaster in details, before, during and after!

Terror En Tenerife by George Otis
The very chilling account of the crash and the survival of Norman Williams, who was in the accident on the Canary Islands in which two huge 747's crashed on the runway and burned. Only a few people out of 500 or more escaped.

Sources and media on the 1977 Disaster:

• BBC 1977: Hundreds dead in Tenerife plane crash (Note: You may not want to watch the BBC news video unless you can muster up a hard heart & strong stomach.)


• Project-Tenerife.com have the video of the reconstruction of the crash, made by National Geographic, which you can view. They also have history, reports and many photos.


• These articles on the Tenerife disaster: Pair of 747s Collide in Worst Air Disaster of 20th Century and Collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747's at Tenerife, explain the fatal chain of events which led to the crash.


• AirDisaster.Com: Special Report: Tenerife


• Pan Am Accidents: Tenerife, Spain


• Aviation Safety Network: 1977 Tenerife Collision


• Air travel's communications killer


• 101Crash.com - Tenerife crash March 27th, 1977


• Airmanship Online - a detailed account of the tragedy


• The Canary Islands Independence Movement

Photos of Tenerife North airport today.

Overview to Tenerife Norte airport and also the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife This photo is dedicated to Robert Bragg, the copilot of the Pan Am that was involved in the fatal crash.

• Rwy 30 final. Check the characteristic cloud over the mountain at Los Rodeos


• Iberia Boeing 747-357 at Tenerife Norte - Los Rodeos


• Overview of rwy 30 as we were on final. Notice how unleveled the rwy. is!!.


• Landing on Rwy 12 as seen from EC-HSE. Notice how the rwy. has different ups and downs!!


• Departing TFN bound for MAD. Note the lightly snowy covered volcano Teide on the right over the wing.


• Finnair Boeing 757-2Q8 departing Tenerife North

Finally, the Tenerife disaster is mentioned in this article, Psychology of Terror, which, whilst any lives lost is too many, does place things into proper perspective.

"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, there you long to return." - Leonardo da Vinci

Labels: Tenerife Disaster

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Tenerife photo gallery