Tenerife Airport Disaster

The Canary Islands: Paradise. These islands are famed for their beaches and sunshine. It’s a perfect place for a holiday. But on March 27, 1977, the passengers of two jumbo jets experience possibly the worst day of their lives.

On the island of Gran Canaria, a terrorist group has planted a bomb at the main airport for the Canary Islands. The airport is shut down. Suddenly, all flights have been diverted to Los Rodeos Airport, a small airport on the island of Tenerife. The airport usually only has a few flights per day; it is not prepared to handle the numerous jumbo jets that will land on its single runway. Radar is not available, and there are only two air traffic controllers on duty that day.

KLM flight 4805 and Pan Am flight 1736, the two planes, involved in the collision, have both touched down safely. Passengers are bored, eagerly waiting for Gran Canaria’s airport to reopen. Eventually, when the airport does reopen, the KLM flight taxies down the runway ahead of the Pan Am flight. The weather, at the time, took a turn for the worst as heavy fog started to settle. Eventually, both planes are on the runway at the exact same time. The KLM is in takeoff position, while the Pan Am flight is still taxing down the runway. The intended move is for the Pan Am flight to veer slightly off the runway. The KLM flight will then be clear for takeoff.

However, the KLM flight wanted to quickly take off. Its captain began the takeoff procedure, unaware that the Pan Am flight was still on the runway. KLM told air traffic control that it was about to take off. Interference unfortunately occurred in radio communications. Only the word “ok” was audible from air traffic control. This led the KLM captain to perceive that they were given clearance to take off when they, in fact, were not. The Pan Am flight was still on the runway. The flight engineer on the KLM flight expressed concerns about takeoff and whether the Pan Am plane was still on the runway, but he was overruled by the captain. The KLM flight soon came careening down the runway, crashing into the Pan Am plane at full speed.

All passengers on the KLM flight died; only 61 of the 396 passengers survived. In all, there were 583 fatalities, making this disaster the deadliest in aviation history.

Finlay, M. (2021, March 28). Tenerife Airport Disaster: How It Happened and what we learned. Simple Flying. Retrieved from https://simpleflying.com/tenerife-disaster/.

The 1996 Mount Everest Disaster

Climbing Mount Everest is often seen as the pinnacle of human achievement. But climbing such a gruelling mountain is a risky feat. Bodies litter the landscape. But on one Everest day, the mountain became a lot more deadlier. In May 1996, two groups of climbers began prepping for the final leg of their journey to the summit. This last leg is the most dangerous as it occurs in the area known as the death zone: a place that is so deprived of oxygen that humans life cannot be supported. When the groups summited and began to descend, it was very late in the day climbing-wise. Oxygen supplies were running low. Climbers started to faint and collapse. Before long, a storm began to gather. 6 climbers, unable to move were left behind. The next morning, climbers look for rescuers. The main reason why so many people died that night was a combination of factors. First, Everest’s official cutoff time to turn back around is 1pm. Any time later exponentially increases the risk as the sun sets and the weather gets colder. Not a single climber from two expeditions reached the summit by 1 pm. On that day, people were descending as late as 4 pm. Delays were caused by crowding and rope issues. Simple issues that added up to the worst day in Everest history.

Leger, C. J. (2020, May 7). The 1996 Everest disaster – the whole story. Base Camp Magazine. Retrieved September 22, 2021, from https://basecampmagazine.com/2016/12/31/the-1996-everest-disaster-the-whole-story/.