Deadly plane crash on Tenerife describes the catastrophe that occurred in 1977 at Los Rodeos Airport – now named Aeropuerto Norte – La Laguna – claiming the lives of 583 people. Nearly half a century after this deadly plane crash on Tenerife involving the collision of two Boeing 747 (B747) jumbojets, we pause to reflect on the events and remember the victims.
March 27, 1977, began as a typical Sunday on Tenerife. The morning recorded an average temperature of 20 degrees. Spring had just begun, and the sky was clear and sunny. On Sundays, air traffic at Los Rodeos Airport is always minimal. But suddenly, things no longer ran smoothly; coincidences and twists of fate led to a catastrophe; the deadly plane crash on Tenerife.
Attack
At Gando Airport on Gran Canaria, a bomb exploded at 12:30 PM in a flower shop. Due to a bomb threat, Gando was closed, and all air traffic was diverted to Tenerife’s only airport, a facility with limited space and equipped with just the essential technical means.
The attack on Gran Canaria caused one injury, a woman who would die 16 years later, in July 1993, at the age of 42, from the consequences. The attack and bomb threat were claimed by the Movimiento por la Autodeterminación e Independencia del Archipiélago Canario (Mpaiac) – a movement demanding self-determination and independence for the Canary Archipelago.
Diverted
Among the planes diverted mid-flight were two Boeing 747s, known as jumbos, giants that have revolutionized commercial aviation. They weigh 183,000 kilos, are 71 meters long, and have an unprecedented capacity of carrying over 500 passengers.
At the time of the attack, a jumbo of the Dutch airline KLM, with registration number PH-BUF, was en route to Gando on charter flight 4805. It had departed Schiphol in Amsterdam that Sunday morning with 14 crew members and 235 passengers – primarily Dutch, but also 4 Germans, 4 Americans, and 2 Australians. There were 48 children and 3 babies on board, all heading to the sunny island of Gran Canaria for a vacation.
Simultaneously, a jumbojet of the American airline Pan American Airlines (Pan Am), with registration number N736P, was flying to Gando on flight 1736. The aircraft had taken off the day before, March 26, 1977, at 01:29 AM (Greenwich Mean Time), and made a stopover at John F. Kennedy in New York to refuel, change crew, and pick up more travelers. The 380 passengers had another stopover in Gran Canaria before heading to their final destination in Greece. Like the passengers on the KLM jumbo, they were thinking of vacation. American retirees were traveling to Greece to board the cruise ship Golden Odyssey for a 12-day cruise on the Mediterranean Sea. The Dutch plane landed at La Laguna Airport at 1:38 PM, and the American at 2:15 PM.
Air Traffic Controller
Fernando Azcúnaga (born 1935 in Bilbao) has lived on Tenerife since he was transferred to Los Rodeos in 1964. Before that, he was a flight attendant for Spantax. He was one of three air traffic controllers in the tower on that fateful Sunday. He began his day at eight in the morning and was relieved for lunch before returning to work. During his lunch break, the situation drastically changed. Planes diverted from Gando began to land, and the airport became overcrowded.
The airport had outdated facilities, with limited apron space, very rudimentary means, and no ground radar. Fernando Azcúnaga and his two colleagues became stressed. They couldn’t move the planes as they wished. Tension ran high in the control tower as one command overrode another.
Stroke of Luck
Fate only favored one passenger, a slender Dutch tour guide with bright eyes aboard the KLM. Robina van Lanschot was traveling to Gran Canaria to then go to Tenerife. She planned to spend 8 days with her boyfriend, Paul Wessels, who was on Tenerife at the time for work. As soon as it was announced that the jumbo would be diverted to Tenerife, Robina thought she was lucky. That’s where she was really headed.
This saved her the flight from Gando to Los Rodeos. A few hours later, she would realize her luck was much greater than she thought. Robina made arrangements to stay on Tenerife. Due to security protocols, the airline refused her request. They don’t allow a passenger to leave the plane midway through the journey, especially not when they have baggage in the hold. But thanks to her insistence and the fact that her boyfriend’s sister, Yvonne Wessels, was among the crew members, they let her disembark from the plane.
Van Zanten is in a Hurry
Jacob Louis Veldhuyzen van Zanten, 50 years old, captain of the KLM jumbo and the advertising face of the company, becomes impatient from the moment he receives the radio command to divert to Tenerife. This is a setback if he wants to comply with the strict rest rules for crews. If he cannot quickly depart to Gando, he will exceed the assigned number of flight hours and will have to spend the night in Gran Canaria before returning to Amsterdam, which means delays, extra costs, and probably a reprimand from the company.
Therefore, he fills up the fuel tanks, a decision that would ultimately prove fatal. Van Zanten’s haste is compounded by the enormous difficulty of the jumbos to maneuver on a runway not designed for such large aircraft. This problem becomes evident when after 4:00 PM it turns out that Gran Canaria’s airport reopens for all air traffic. The Pan Am plane, with all passengers on board, receives permission to begin the take-off procedure. Shortly thereafter, the cockpit crew of the KLM receives the same instruction.
Air Traffic Resumes
After three aircraft more suitable for the dimensions of Los Rodeos – a 737, a 727, and a DC-8 – have taken off, the two jumbos start to move. They seem like elephants in a rabbit hole. They move from the parking area to the beginning of the northern runway – towards Tacoronte – from there to head to the beginning of the southern runway – towards Santa Cruz – and takeoff, one after the other, maintaining a safe distance.
Dense Fog
Just at the start of this phase, something happens that definitively changes everything: dense fog descends over Los Rodeos within seconds, a phenomenon the local population knows all too well. Visibility is less than 300 meters. The blue KLM aircraft reaches the beginning of the runway. The Pan Am has to veer off, but gets confused due to the limited visibility and the fact that the runway lights are not working at that moment. It gets stuck because, moreover, the angle of the wrongly chosen exit greatly hampers the turn. Communication with the tower is also not smooth. There are other planes in line.
Deadly plane crash on Tenerife
Van Zanten’s impatience reaches its peak. He starts the engines without clearance from the tower. 5:05 PM. The fog becomes even denser. The KLM starts taking off without permission. Van Zanten doesn’t know the Pan Am is across the runway, just 1,300 meters away. Likewise, the captain of the Pan Am, Victor Grubbs, is unaware the KLM is barreling down on him. They see nothing. It is 5:06 PM and 12 seconds. Van Zanten releases the brakes of his 747 and communicates, “We’re going.” The tower replies, “Okay, wait to take off. I will call you.” But the KLM is already in an irreversible maneuver. At 5:06 PM and 50 seconds, the Pan Am appears out of the mist, just 100 meters away. The KLM tries desperately to take off. The Pan Am also revs up its engines to get off the runway by any means possible. Silence on the radios. The fog absorbs everything. Nobody sees anything beyond the runway, just the fog.
Extent of the Tragedy
The tour guide, Robina van Lanschot, who had left the KLM, is on her way to Santa Cruz de Tenerife to meet her boyfriend. Even Azcúnaga, in the control tower, cannot imagine what has exactly happened. At the moment of the collision, he and his two colleagues were unaware of what occurred. He found out when the pilot of a plane, stopped just below the tower, told him via radio that there was fire on the runway. He heard an explosion, but it seemed far away; it wasn’t a sharp noise. Nobody saw or heard the crash due to the fog. When he called the two jumbos and saw that they didn’t respond, he feared the worst.
Pan Am’s Co-Pilot
Robert Bragg, the co-pilot of the Pan Am, was one of the 63 survivors. No one in the KLM survived the crash. The total toll of the deadliest aviation accident in commercial aviation history, if we don’t count the attacks on the Twin Towers, is 583 dead.
The photo of Bragg, wounded, with a blood-stained shirt, and disoriented just after leaving the plane, is one of the iconic images of the tragedy. He continued flying until 1997. Before his death in 2017, he recounted in several interviews that he closed his eyes at the moment of impact and bowed his head. He didn’t see anyone, only the fire that raged. He didn’t know where the captain was, but later found him in the hospital. A few minutes after leaving the aircraft, he spoke with the airport director, who told him everything was under control and then took him to the hospital.
Hundreds Dead
Antonio Sierra was awakened from his nap by a call from the civil governor, Antonio Oyarzábal. He revealed in several interviews when he was the head of health on Tenerife at the time. He was told to go to Los Rodeos because there had been an accident, but no further details were provided. During lunch, they had seen the jumbos flying towards the airport over Santa Cruz. When they arrived there, access roads were closed, and there was a crowd of onlookers. The governor was waiting for him and informed him that there were hundreds of dead.
Unforgettable
Firefighter Elías Fernández was at the crash site within a minute. He was on duty at the airport that day. There were ten of them, including the foreman. He had seen the jumbos parked. Elías was doing rounds on the platform because there were planes everywhere. Ten parking spaces were crammed with twenty planes closely packed together. What he found was something he’ll never forget, likely the most horrific moments in Tenerife’s history. The KLM had slid down the runway for 350 meters. The firefighters initially assumed it was the only aircraft involved because the fog was extremely dense.
It was completely engulfed in flames. Even the blue paint was not visible. Soon, airport personnel alerted them to another aircraft. Only then did they realize the scale of the disaster. Amid the screams of the injured, airport staff, and emergency teams, a tremendous chaos ensued. Nothing was clear. The smoke was black, and the flames devoured everything. The worst came shortly after: retrieving the human remains. Such a thing is unforgettable.
Hospitals Overwhelmed
Casto Viejo, a medical resident in Traumatology at the University Hospital Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, was on emergency duty that night. As soon as Dr. Callicó informed him of the news, he alerted the rest of his colleagues to prepare. Ambulances started to arrive, dropped off the injured, and went back for more. There weren’t enough ambulances available.
Many hospital workers voluntarily reported to their posts, even though it was their day off. The first thing they did was administer emergency care. The doctor highlighted the remarkable response of the Tenerifeños to calls for blood donations. The two main hospitals on the island, Candelaria and HUC, were overwhelmed.
950 Deaths at Los Rodeos
Tens of thousands of references on the internet, three documentaries, thousands of pages in archives, books, countless commemorations for the victims. The collision of the jumbos remains the accident with the most fatalities in the history of commercial aviation. It was the sixth air accident at Los Rodeos since 1964. It wasn’t the last. Three years later, on April 25, 1980, a Boeing 727 of the British airline Dan Air, bound for Los Rodeos, crashed into El Diablillo mountain, between Candelaria, La Victoria, and El Rosario, at 1,600 meters. The pilots aborted the landing because another aircraft was on the runway, but they turned to the wrong place. All 146 on board perished. In total, seven air accidents at Los Rodeos claimed 950 lives.
After the Tragedy
After that tragedy, everything changed. In 1978, an international airport, Reina Sofia, was opened in the south of Tenerife, but this was not in response to the deadly plane crash on Tenerife; it had been planned several years earlier. Later, safety measures and facilities at Los Rodeos were improved, and systems were installed to provide essential support to pilots in cases of poor visibility. There have been no more accidents, and La Laguna Airport meets all quality standards. It doesn’t even bear the same name as before. Today it’s called Tenerife Norte – Ciudad de La Laguna.
Unknown © Photography
Deadly plane crash on Tenerife ©
More History [HERE]
Interested in Tenerife?
Subscribe to our newsletter and always stay informed about the news on Tenerife.
Enter your first name and a valid email address below. Then click on Subscribe.
