The Tenerife Accident of 1977

The 1977 Tenerife Accident

Mahlon Meier

Embry-Riddle University

The 1977 Tenerife Accident

The Tenerife Airport accident of 1977 was, and to this date, is still the deadliest accident to occur in the history of aviation. The total loss of life reached 583 souls. But who was to blame, and what had gone wrong? With an in-depth investigation into the chain of events, coincidences, mistakes, and misunderstandings that lead to this major disaster, we now have a better understanding of what took place. From aircraft investigations we can take in critical information to why an incident happened and how to help prevent similar scenarios of events, circumstances, mistakes, and misunderstandings from happening again.

The start of events unfolded around the early afternoon of March 27th, 1977. Pan Am flight 1736, a Boeing 747, was nearing its destination of Los Palmas, Canary Islands. The flight contained 396 souls onboard, which originated in Los Angeles the prior afternoon, then had a lay-over in New York. The majority of passengers on Pan Am flight 1736 were on their way to a vacation in Los Palmas, and as for the others, they would be boarding one of the many cruise ships that departed from the islands. It was probably inconceivable to think that the tragic events that were about to occur.

Also nearing Los Palmas was the Dutch carrier KLM flight 4805. Flight 4805 was also a Boeing 747 with 234 souls on board. KLM flight 4805 was commanded by Captain Jacob Louis van Zanten, who was KLM’s most senior pilot. Captain van Zanten was almost a super star within the airline, and was on many of the KLM advertisements for several years (as seen in figure one). Captain van Zanten had become such a senior pilot that he seldom actually flew later in his career. At this point, most of van Zanten’s time was training junior pilots using simulators back in Holland. Aircrew members who had to fly with Captain van Zanten often felt inferior and afraid...