1/17/2024 0 Comments United 747 cockpit takeoffOnce safely off the runway, Pan Am will report so to the tower. Pan Am’s instructions are to turn clear along a left-side taxiway to allow the other plane’s departure. Captain Van Zanten will steer to the end, turn around, then hold in position until authorized for takeoff. KLM taxis ahead and onto the runway, with the Pan Am Clipper ambling several hundred yards behind. Los Rodeos, now known as Tenerife North Airport, in 2006 For reasons you’ll see in a moment, that will be critical. That fuel also means extra weight, affecting how quickly the 747 is able to become airborne. During the delay, a heavy blanket of fog swoops down from the hills and envelopes the airport. The weather is fine until just before the accident, and if not for KLM requesting extra fuel at the last minute, both would be on their way sooner. Pan Am is quickly ready for departure, but the lack of room and the angle at which the jets face each other requires that KLM begin to taxi first. Finally at around four o’clock, Las Palmas begins accepting traffic again. The Rhine and Clipper Victor sit adjacent to each other at the southeast corner of the apron, their wingtips almost touching. The normally lazy Los Rodeos is packed with diverted flights. Later, when KLM executives first get word of the crash, they will attempt to contact Van Zanten in hopes of sending him to Tenerife to aid the investigation team. If passengers recognize him, it’s because his confident, square-jawed visage stares out from KLM’s magazine ads. The KLM captain, Jacob Van Zanten, whose errant takeoff roll will soon kill nearly six hundred people, including himself, is the airline’s top 747 instructor pilot and a KLM celebrity. KLM, for its part, is the oldest continuously operating airline in the world, founded in 1919 and highly regarded for its safety and punctuality. Let’s not forget the airlines themselves: Pan Am, the most storied franchise in the history of aviation, requires little introduction. Really, though, what were the chances of that - a Hollywood script if ever there was one. For just those reasons, it was hard not to imagine what a story it would be - and how much carnage might result - should two of these behemoths ever hit each other. In 1977, in only its eighth year of service, the Boeing 747 was already the biggest, the most influential, and possibly the most glamorous commercial jetliner ever built. Never was this illustrated more calamitously - almost to the point of absurdity - than on that Sunday afternoon almost forty years ago. Indeed, most airplane crashes result not from a single error or failure, but from a chain of improbable errors and failures, together with a stroke or two of really bad luck. The magnitude of the accident speaks for itself, but what makes it particularly unforgettable is the startling set of ironies and coincidences that preceded it. Five hundred and eighty three people were killed in what remains the biggest air disaster in history. There, on March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s - one belonging to KLM, the other to Pan Am - collided on a foggy runway. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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