A Brief History of: The Tenerife Airport Disaster, a dark day for Aviation (Documentary) 

Want to see more aviation disasters let me know in the comments 👇

There was a woman from the KLM plane who got off the plane at Tenerife and stayed there because her boyfriend lived there. Talk about lucky. Sadly her 2 friends got back on the KLM even though she asked them to stay with her.

This incident really is the “worst case scenario”

Another ironic twist of luck: Added weight lengthens take off distance. If the KLM had not refueled then there's a better chance that he would have cleared the Pan Am.

The cheese explanation definitely resonates with a lot of the disasters that you have covered. It’s usually the ‘perfect storm’ event that causes these issues.

One minor linguistic point, Van Zanten’s “oh, yes” on being questioned by the Flight Engineer as to whether the Pan Am was clear of the runway was actually the word “jawel”. This is a contradictory form of yes in Dutch, implying that he was dismissing his colleague’s concern and that there was no thought in his mind that the runway was not clear. I’m delighted to see that PD didn’t fall into the trap of discussing whether the Pan Am flight was at fault for taking the “fourth”exit from the runway rather than the “third”. The simple fact was that they had not reported clear of the runway so there was no reason for anyone to think that they were anywhere other than where they were i.e. still on the runway.

Fun fact: In german the Swiss Cheese Model is called "Verkettung unglücklicher Umstände" which roughly translates to "chain of unfortunate circumstances" and I think this is another great description, because a chain can be broken by removing one segment, which would have prevented the disaster.

All regulations are written in blood. Should not be forgotten.

While all on board the KLM flight perished, there was one KLM ticket holder who survived, because she lived on Tenerife and decided to simply take the roads home instead of going all the way to Gran Canaria. It's one of the stranger silver linings of this tragedy.

So many analogies for 'meet conditions': Perfect storm, stars line up, domino effect... The swiss cheese analogy is new to me, so thank you for the history and analogy!!

This is the most tragic and impactful case of "get there-itis" ever and my heart goes out to the famlies of loved ones lost that day. I can't imagine coming upon this scene either; just unimaginable to see two jumbos collide, especially at an airport that normally . Hopefully we never have another accident this serious. Also the swiss cheese example is the best visualization i've ever seen of how this sort of accident happens!

I think it was Kelsey, the 74Gear pilot who said that this catastrophy changed how pilots and ATCs communicated, hence the ROGER instead of the OK, always using the airplane ID, always repeating the answers to the ATC, etc just to avoid misunderstanding and confusion. It's interesting to learn that investigations are as much to give recommendations to step up the security work as much as finding the cause of an accident.

I'm an auditor and quality professional. Whenever I give training on root cause analysis, I always include this as an example. I gave a training course last month, and people were both amazed and horrified - but I bet they never forget it.

I was expecting the normal kind of intro you do but cheese is so much better

I still think the KLM pilot was mostly at fault. Impatient to say the least.

Seriously man, you have a dangerous talent. You can make almost any disaster easy listening. Keep doing what you do! Your content is awesome and informative.

“Background noise could be heard from a football game being listened to” wait so your telling me that the people in ATC were watching FOOTBALL while giving instructions to aircraft at the most critical stage of any flight.

Remember, this accident happened before the days of CRM, where hierarchy and seniority were more important than team dynamics.

The most interesting part about this for me has always been how this shaped the airline industry after, with confirming what ATC said back to them, to confirm both sides heard correct and to make sure other aircraft hear it as well. It’s a terrible tragedy, but it definitely helped make the airline industry much safer.

15:00 It is interesting that the airline wanted him to help investigate the accident, considering he already knew exactly what had happened, but he was no longer in a position to explain it to anyone. He was 100% at fault for the accident, having taken off without clearance.

A saying one of our pilots here has is, "All takeoffs are optional, all landings are mandatory." There is also the old Navy aviation saying that, "the superior pilot uses his superior judgment to save him from having to resort to his superior skills."

Pls could you do the Leichhardt plane crash in Australia. The crash is the reason we have black boxes. Your audience could find it very interesting. Brilliant video

One women from KLM survived, she didn’t reboard the plane because she lived on that island and wanted to hang out with her boyfriend

This disaster was mainly the fault of the arrogance of the KLM Dutch pilot.

I understand that one of the side effects of this accident was that some of the surviving passengers were wearing polyester clothing which melted in the heat and stuck to their bodies making the burns worse. This is why you shouldn’t wear synthetics on airplanes. I’m sure this happened in other instances, but because of the widespread interest in this crash it was brought to the foreground.

Title: "A brief history of..." Vid: 20+min I love this channel.

I've heard this one before, but even so, it's still a haunting disaster, a foggy runway, passengers on the PanAm not knowing what was going on, and the poor sods on the side the KLM was heading from, seeing a plane appear out of the fog, that being the last thing they see before they're dead, a horrific level of terror to experience, and I hope that they didn't suffer... :(

I'm an American but because of this channel I've caught myself using "balls!" as an expletive lately.

Interesting you mention Human Factors, as that's one of the core safety courses now taught within the aviation community, with the dirty dozen being one of the core things taught within it.

Hotshot pilot: "Can we take off?" Tower: "...%^$#%$%!$% ...#@$@#" Hotshot pilot: "I'll take that as a Yes"

Wow- when you posted the teaser, based on the photo I thought it was going to be the broken arrow incident near Palomares, Spain when a B-52 crashed and dropped 3-4 nuclear weapons in the ocean and over a field. So tragic and such a lesson in safety and one of its meanest adversaries: hubris.

Having seen this incident on multiple shows, I like your way of handling it best. All the info is presented clearly and well constructed. All your documentaries are very good. Thank you for your hard work.

The nuclear navy uses the concept of 'defense in depth'. You never, ever depend on one person or one system to get something right. There must always be backups, whether it's keeping cooling water on a reactor or writing a good proposal for an ERP system update.

Going on a flight from NY to Cali this month so watching all the terrible, tragic things that can happen during transportation seems fit.

Also I remember watching a documentary about this in Dutch. And most of the blame back then was shifted on to ATC. They refused to blame the Dutch pilot.

"Here's a few seconds of PD pulled a children's dog toy along the carpet." Me, for some damn reason: :D

A lot of unfortunate things happened: If no attack it would not happen. If KLM didn’t refuel, it could in theory climbed away. And they won’t take off in fog. If PanAm didn’t miss the exit, the crash won’t happen. If no ATC communication confusion, it will not happen. Arguably, if KLM didn’t drag their tail on the runway they could have less damage and may survived. Regulators can’t do anything about anything other than the ATC communications, so that was exactly what they done. ATC communication had been revised to such extant it is now very professional, and a regular person won’t able to blend in “Catch me if you can” style.

That French train disaster you showed with the cheese looks very curious. Is that worthy of a video?

There was also one passenger who got off the plane (Pan Am 1736) at Tenerife that lived there. I think she was the only survivor of her plane (because she was at home instead)

Today I learnt that the Canary Islands had a separatist movement

As horrible and apathetic as I probably sound... I can't be the only one who thinks the picture of the locomotive bursting out the station looks really bloody cool.

A terrible tragedy, and as another comment says, the next year there was yet another horrible accident in Spain at Los Alfaques, Tarragona, when a propylene tanker exploded next to a camping site that was full of people on their summer holidays engulfing the whole place in a literal cloud of fire. As another interesting event, the Palomares incident from 1966 is remarkable in including all at once: nuclear material, a broken arrow event, and aircraft collission in mid-air. The incident is briefly shown near the ending of the 'Men of Honor' film, with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the role of who would become the second African American master diver in the US Navy.

Cause of the accident was an arrogant impatient Dutchman.

Your coverage of this is worthy of an episode of Mayday: Air Crash Investigation!! (or however it's called where you live, everyone knows that show ^^)

Planely Difficult.

The tragic part of the rule that was ostensibly put in place to protect pilots, the cap on hours at the controls, was weaponized against them, which was a major factor in this crash. When a rule like that can end up with the pilot in handcuffs, _wow_ is it missing the point.

As Tenerifian myself i remember as a little kid that something terrible had happened and a picture of two burned bodies on the front page of the local newspaper.

Experience is no guarantee that you will not make mistakes. If anything, I think the more experience someone has the greater the danger due to complacency or hubris. I have noticed that many people who have lengthy experience in a field tend to believe they are, for the lack of a better word, invulnerable. I see it in pilots, outdoors enthusiasts, drivers, engineers, medical professionals, etc. While a novice makes mistake due to not knowing, the experienced person makes mistakes by doing things fully aware of the dangers, but still ignoring the same dangers. It's as if the more experience they gain, the more they are willing to break the rules because they feel they are above the rules; that their experience makes them an exception.

My wife: what are you watching? Me: a video about a plane crash My wife: why is he talking about cheese? Me: its plainly difficult to explain

I had that puppy toy when i was young. To think I'd see it here of all places given I'm almost across the world in Latin America.

I've always thought that in a circumstance where the controller cannot see the planes and the planes cannot see one another then the controller has to deal with the situation in a completely different way. This is something that doesn't apply during the day or during the night. Practically zero visibility is a unique situation. You cannot therefore treat it as the same as other situations. There are assumptions made during daylight and at night that planes can see one another and therefore will be able to avoid a catastrophic error like this. The controllers therefore have to modify the way they control the planes. They have to ensure that two planes are never on the runway at the same time and that they are clear at all times where each plane is and that each plane knows where the other planes are. They should order all planes to stop until they establish this and make sure everyone is clear about their locations. There should also be informational messages to all aircraft on the frequency instead of just giving a call sign for a particular plane , which tends to cause pilots to ignore messages not directed at them. If the controller had contacted the KLM pilot and said 'The Pan Am plane is still on the runway. When he is clear of the runway I will contact you. Please acknowledge' this would never have happened. It would be a non-standard message but it is a non-standard situation.

The new law contributed to the disaster. The KLM pilot took on fuel and wasted half an hour because he was worried about this bit of bureaucracy. I understand that flying tired can be a problem, but bureaucratic laws put pressures on people. This leads them to look for work-arounds so that they can comply with the rules. If not for that law, the KLM plane would have taken off before the fog descended. The plane would have been an hour or so late getting home. The pilots might have been over the arbitrary limit, but they and their passengers would be alive. Bureaucrats need to understand that they shouldn't be making absolutes. Physics and mechanics are absolutes. Two planes trying to occupy the same space at the same time is a disaster. That's an absolute. A plane fully loaded with fuel not being able to take off as quickly and burning more completely on crashing is an absolute. The problems of seeing in a fog are absolutes. Bureaucratic rules should never be an absolute.

That one pilot was absolutely moronic. Seems it mattered more to be on time rather than protect human lives.

Someone was definitely hungry while thinking of an analogy for multiple safety system failure. Mmm, yes, cheese.

I learned about this from Walter White.

Where's the damn dam? I see no dam in this one and it's not set in Brazil. You're not the real Plainly Difficult. WHERE'S JON!!!!

Remember the news reports as a 15 year old. 😬 Still get chills every time I see or hear something about the disaster. The next summer it was the Los Alfaques tanker explosion...

Long-term fan, Dutch, I'll admit that bias, but as aviation nut, fairly disappointed you didn't go into Crew Resource Management, which (lack of) was also a major contributor to the incident. It was the incident to completely change commercial aviation, because this incident lead to implementing CRM...

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” That is the littoral definition of what happened at Tenerife

I like your swizz cheese analysis. Another slice of cheese to add is that the KLM crew under the captain were quite new and the captain wasn't only their captain, but the captain of captains of their company. They daren't speak out against him and when they did over something so important as questioning if the other plane was clear of the runway, the captain fobbed them off without checking. Since then captains of all airlines are told to listen to their crew and the crew are told not to be worried about challenging their captain's desicions.

I thought I'd seen everything about this incident but you've actually told me a couple of things I didn't know, good work as always. Thank you

I used to study human factors type psychology, and find myself watching this channel a lot. It's kind of nice to finally see someone else talk about the Swiss cheese model, because I was starting to feel silly explaining it to people. As one of my professors used to say, a lot of people will look at the "human error" explanation and then move on, when that's really when the investigation starts. I get that impression with the response a lot of people still have towards Veldhuyzen van Zanten, who's behavior represents one of the things that went wrong. It's easier to believe that an accident rests on the shoulders of one arrogant pilot, rather than a series of poorly controlled circumstances (such as listening to a football match during a busy, foggy afternoon). This reminds me of another accident where an aircraft crashed after take-off due to ice built up on the wings and lack of proper de-icing: From the cockpit recording it's clear that the co-pilot is trying to call this out to the captain, but he's not using clear language, trying to draw the captain's attention indirectly. So they take off without de-icing, and they crash. Apparently this was also a problem with Korean Airlines, as they defaulted to their own hierarchical culture, and the controlling aspect of the co-pilot was lost, leading to them then being one of the most unsafe airlines in the world. Thankfully, they corrected this a long time ago. Also, I developed a massive fear of flying from looking at all these accidents at an academic level. Frankly, I prefer nuclear disasters. But there's plenty of human factors going on in those, as well. Oh boy.

This disaster is such a perfect example of a perfect storm, so much went wrong that it only could end in disaster

Sadly all that could fail, failed, and a curious detail, 2 years ago a part from the Pan Am plane was found 3km away from the original crash site, it was a horrible crash that even today it haunts the TNF Norte airport

I don't think the Swiss cheese analogy has anything to do with lining up the holes, but that the more slices you have the less likely it is to be able see all the way through one hole with each slice being a safety precaution

I wonder what the terrorists, who set the initial events in motion, felt about the crash. Did they see it as an unexpected victory? Collateral damage? On very rare occasions, terrorists have released comments expressing regret when unintended victims are killed. Of course, most see no "innocent victims."

I was wondering when you were going to get to this one. This still stands as the single largest loss of life on an airfield. This also changed the way ATC facilitates communications with aircraft. It was a lack of ground radar; the inability to see the field due to fog; miscommunication due to the tower controllers not fully understanding what they were being told; and a major rush by a airline captain who insisted on holding things up unnecessarily to refuel, which all came together with devastating effect. His arrogance that day was quite deadly. Excellent video!

Since learning about this I never fly with KLM. Their whole attitude were to deny responsibility from the beginning.

I always hated the swiss cheese model. In real swiss when you slice it, the holes naturally line up. You're taking slices of a spherical gas bubble.

Excellent job on this, such a terrible incident. Love the cheese analogy!

There was one woman on the KLM flight who survived, because she lived on the island and decided to not get back on the plane just to come back home the next day. The airline told her not to do that, but she ignored the instruction.

Well done video…in the report is the fact that the KLM actually refuelled mentioned as a contributing factor to the after crash fire and if the added weight of the fuel prevented the KLM flight from cycling quicker and possibly missing the PanAm flight? It’s a horrific example of compound errors.

One passenger from the KLM flight Robina van Lanschot a tour guide didn't re-board the flight. Her boyfriend and her lived in the island and it made no sense for her to go to Gran Canaria and go back to Tenerife the next day. She left her ticket and luggage at the airport went home to her boyfriend. That saved her life.

If that airport had ground tracking radar, the disaster would likely *NOT* happened. This disaster expedited the installation of ground radar at most major airports.

The most annoying thing is the people trying to say that the captain who tried more than once to take off without clearance who had a toxic relationship as captain and actively ignored standard safety precautions by choosing to act ignorance is excused over a crew that had active communication with ATC.

The paramedic "teacher" for ethics had a great example for paying attention. He would take out and egg and hand it to someone in class, then every few minutes would take the egg and hand it to someone else. At the end of class he threw the egg to the floor. "This is what happens when we screw up with head and spinal injuries, people end up as scrambled eggs" is what he said afterwards

None of the contributing factors exculpate Veldhuyzen van Zanten one iota, quite the opposite. None of the ATC messages should have been taken to indicate takeoff clearance by such an experienced pilot, yet he decided to take off anyway in very poor visibility conditions, knowing the Pan Am plane could still be on the runway and dismissing his flight crew's concerns. In a better world, his massive, hubristic ego would have been the only thing killed that day as he sulked off to his hotel room on Las Palmas. Instead, he killed 582 people. His self centered actions alone triggered the disaster. He is 100 percent to blame. Always felt this way ever since I first read about the disaster, always will. And I'm Dutch.

So, technically, you could say a Dutch family with a punctuality problem killed 583 people. 😂

Another piece of cheese was that KLM added fuel. That was unnecessary. What it caused was to make the jet even heavier. It was calculated, had he not added fuel, they would have safely made the takeoff in the panic, just barely, but it would have cleared the PanAm. The first "final" report for the accident gave a lot of blame to the KLM pilot, but politics and posturing by the Dutch government resulted in a new report placing less blame on the pilot and more on ATC. Frankly, the first report was far more accurate. That SOB pilot caused the deaths of hundreds of people due to his arrogance and impatience. The ridiculously stupid Dutch law helped create that monster. Those PanAm pilots were heroes. Their quick thinking may not have saved everyone, but 60 people survived because of their efforts. Sadly, "flooring" a jet engine does not bring instant results

There have been several recent videos on this disaster, but yours included a number of details I hadn't heard before. Well done.

I will forever be mystified as to why the KLM did not ask for the garbled message to be repeated. Is it not normal for a person to ask for something to be repeated if part of a message has been lost to static or other noise? You must know that you missed something that someone was saying, and that it could be important. Especially when you are in a 747 in poor visibility and knowing that there is another 747 out there somewhere because it has been parked right behind you for hours. And at such a small airport there were not many places the other 747 could be.

Did you know Flight 4805 had one survivor? (I should have posted this on the Patreon, my bad) Robina van Lanschot was a tour guide who opted to make her own way home to Tenerife rather than reboard the plane, a decision that although was apparently against the rules would ultimately save her life. Her remarkable escape is mentioned on both the Wikipedia page and the Air Crash Investigation episode Disaster at Tenerife. As an add, that terrorist group must have been sh*tting itself when they heard the fallout from their bombs.

Quite the ego on Van Zanten. Imagine having a great career with a lot of power and respect for decades, and then your legacy ends up being that you killed almost 600 people.

A perfect storm of events that bted an inevitable disaster. Sad that Van Zanten ignored all the warning signs that said to stay on the ground.

They should’ve had a clause in that work time law that said “the only exception is in an emergency situation.” Like this one. There were bombs involved and diverting the planes and the fog and so many factors.

I prefer the north American railroad standard of the law. It's not the crews but the dispatcher who are liable for crew work hours. There is another story there too...

The concorde crash "Air France Flight 4590" would be an interesting one.

Ok. I'm going to make some breakfast. Thinking I might have some swiss cheese with my omelet.

"Now I've got you thinking about tasty cheese. You might be asking what has this got to do with anything?" Except that we've watched your videos before. Heck, this could practically be the Swiss Cheese channel. ;)

Imagine the medical crews who had to recover and assemble the bodies of 582 people. Awful beyond description.

A good short information-packed account of the disaster. I’ve heard this also spurred the movement to Cockpit Resource Management (CRM).

Obviously the main cause of the crash is the ego and reckless behavior of KLM's captain. A less sure of himself pilot facing confusing radio communication would have cautiously stayed on the runway, asking for a repeat of instruction, and even contacted other planes around to know where everyone was before pushing the throttle.

Loving the cheese intro! You make historical events much more interesting you need your own netflix series!!! I have started binge watching your channel while I'm sick!

And, this is why they teach patience, and NO defensive driving (which IS, a form of impatience), in most 'first world' state's (US's, blue states).

It's always interesting to see different interpretations of this catastrophic disaster. Very nicely done!

Honestly, it sounds like the #1 factor was the unclear message given by ATC where it was unclear whether the flight was actually given clearance to take off or not. The captain messed up and should have confirmed his interpretation of what ATC meant before actually taking off, but it seems terrible that such an ambiguous message was given in the first place and that the airline industry had not yet created a set phrase like “You are cleared for takeoff” to indication exactly when the plane should GO. -Just my thoughts as a layman.

Again the cheese, in our Human Factors we have this example, the same thing, every 2 years.

On October 8th, 2001, two planes collided on Linate airport, Milan, Italy. 114 people perished, 110 in the two aircraft, which collided in dense fog. Another four people on the ground died. A small plane had taken the wrong turn and had entered an active runway in the fog. There should be red flashing warning lights telling the pilots that they are about to enter an active runway. Such lights were not in place. Neither was there a ground radar telling the air traffic controller where the planes were. A Scandinavian Airlines plane on its takeoff roll collided with the taxiing plane. This accident was thus similar to the Tenerife disaster, albeit the number of casualties was not as high in Milan.

Usually back-tracking as opposed to back-taxiing when you have to taxi then turn before takeoff

Knows 747 is potently on runway......fails to get adequate conformation that it has left the runway, disregard other crew members questioning that that plane has left the runway, take off without permission............ how can you be the head of pilot training when you act like that. It would have took like 30 seconds to talk to ATC to clear it up.