the plane, was just torn wide open."
The other 56 passengers and 5 crew members aboard the Pan Am aircraft survived, including the pilots and flight engineer. Most of the survivors on the Pan Am aircraft walked out onto the left wing, the side away from the collision, through holes in the fuselage structure. Pan Am’s engines were still running at takeoff power for a few minutes after the accident despite First Officer Bragg's attempt to shut them down..
The cockpit overhead, where the engine emergency shut down switches were located, had been destroyed in the collision- all control lines were severed, leaving no way for the flight crew to control them. After a short time running at full power the engines began to disintegrate, throwing engine parts at high speed, killing one of the flight attendants who had escaped the burning plane.
Survivors waited for rescue but it did not come promptly as the firefighters were initially unaware that there were two aircraft involved and were concentrating on the KLM wreck some distance away in the thick fog. Eventually, most of the survivors on the Pan Am aircraft wings jumped to the ground some 10’ below. ( photo above)
Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten was KLM's chief of flight training and the airline's preferred pilot for publicity such as magazine advertisements. As such, KLM management attempted to contact him to give public statements regarding the disaster before learning that he was the captain involved. Veldhuyzen van Zanten had, in fact, given the co-pilot on this ill-fated flight his 747 qualification check about two months before the accident.
CHAPTER 2
“The danger? But danger is one of the attractions of flight.”
— Jean Conneau, 1911
Aftermath; About 70 crash investigators from Spain, the Netherlands, the United States, and the two airline companies were involved in the investigation. Representatives from the insurance companies, the two air carriers, the press, and other investigators from the US, Holland and Spain all converged on the site within hours. Literally, there were hundreds of them. The search for the truth had begin. Blame had to be laid and payments made. This is the aftermath:
So what happened? Over time, the facts showed that there had been various misinterpretations and false assumptions. Analysis of the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) 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. It appears KLM's co-pilot was not as certain about take-off clearance as the captain.
Subsequent to the crash, first officer Robert Bragg, who was responsible for handling the Pan Am's radio communications, made public statements which conflicted with statements made by the Pan Am crew in the official transcript of the CVR.
In the documentary Crash of the Century (produced by the makers of Mayday), he stated he was convinced the tower controller had intended they take the fourth exit C-4 because the controller delivered the message to take "the third one, sir; one, two, three; third, third one" after the Pan Am aircraft had already passed C-1 (making C-4 the third exit counting from there).
The CVR shows unequivocally that they received this message before they identified C-1, with the position of the aircraft somewhere between the entrance and C-1. Also, in a Time article, Bragg stated that he made the statement "What's he doing? He'll kill us all!" which does not appear in the CVR transcript.
The investigation finally concluded that the fundamental cause of the accident was that Captain Van Zanten took off without takeoff clearance. ( see KLM findings in appendices) The investigators suggested one of the reason for his mistake might have been a desire to leave as soon as possible in order to comply with KLM's duty-time regulations, and before the weather deteriorated further. I personally doubt this as no pilot ever would attempt a take-off if he thought that there was any possibility that another aircraft might be on the runway.
One thing worth mentioning here is that accident investigators always have one thing in mind; if at all possible, blame the pilot! Of course, as at Tenerife, this was clearly the case. Human error is, in point of fact, the causative factor in most air accidents. Faulting the pilot however has other major advantages and for this reason this is one of the cardinal rules of aviation accident investigation. This is especially easy to do if the pilot is conveniently dead! You will find that pilot error is almost always listed as the official cause. Mostly, this is the case but not always. Download a few of the “blue book” findings from the NTSB and look this up for yourselves. The reason for this bias , if it can be called that, is due entirely to product liability concerns. If the aircraft is at fault then the consequences financially could be monumental, extending far beyond insurance considerations. For example, when the tail fell off the Airbus 300 back in 2001 as it took off from New York, the American Airlines pilots refused to fly the aircraft and the entire fleet was parked.
After that, no one wanted to buy or lease Airbus products. The investigators tried to blame the co-pilot for pushing too hard on the rudder pedal. This, of course, is asinine and absurd. The aircraft was well below its max operating speed, MMO, the speed that all the control surfaces can safely be moved to their full deflection without structural damage. The bloody vertical fin and rudder just fell off in some light to moderate wake turbulence. Airbus put extreme political pressure on the US Government who then coerced the NTSB into blaming the pilots- both of whom were conveniently dead. No one believed for a minute the NTSB’s probable cause.
Getting back to Tenerife, where pilot error was definitely the cause. Other major contributing factors were:
•The sudden fog greatly limited visibility. (major)
•The control tower and the crews of both planes were unable to see one another.
•Simultaneous radio transmissions, with the result that neither message could be heard.
The following factors were considered contributing but not critical:
•Use of ambiguous non-standard phrases by the KLM co-pilot ("We're at take off") and the Tenerife control tower ("OK").
•Pan Am mistakenly continued to exit C-4 instead of exiting at C-3 as directed.
•The airport was (due to rerouting from the bomb threat) forced to accommodate a great number of large aircraft, resulting in disruption of the normal use of taxiways.
The Dutch authorities were naturally reluctant to accept the Spanish report blaming the KLM captain for the accident. The Netherlands Department of Civil Aviation published a response that, whilst accepting that the KLM aircraft had taken
