Fog, Misheard Clearance, and 583 Dead: Tenerife's Takeoff That Killed

Fog, Misheard Clearance, and 583 Dead: Tenerife's Takeoff That Killed

Five hundred and eighty-three people died when a Boeing 747 at full takeoff speed struck another 747 sitting on a fog-covered runway in the Canary Islands - the deadliest accident in aviation history. How did a bomb on a different island, a crowded single-runway airport, and a series of five decisions cascade into a collision nobody saw coming?

In this episode, we tell the documented record of that afternoon and trace the choices and conditions that led to the disaster, from the bomb at Gran Canaria Airport to the final takeoff roll at Los Rodeos. What sequence of decisions turned routine procedure into an irreversible chain?

Event: Tenerife runway collision Date: 27 March 1977 Deaths: 583 Aircraft 1: KLM Flight 4805, registration PH-BUF, named Rijn Aircraft 2: Pan Am Flight 1736, registration N736PA, named Clipper Victor

- At 17:05 on 27 March 1977 a Boeing 747 traveling at full takeoff speed struck another 747 on the ground. - KLM Flight 4805 departed Amsterdam carrying 235 passengers, including 52 children; one passenger who disembarked before departure survived. - Pan Am Flight 1736 carried 396 passengers, including a group of 53 from Orange County, California; none of those 53 survived. - A bomb detonated at Gran Canaria Airport at 13:15, injuring eight people and causing multiple airliners to divert to Los Rodeos. - Los Rodeos had a single runway and parallel taxiway; diverted aircraft filled the taxiway forcing backtaxi and leaving a 3.7-meter gap between the two 747s.

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