Tenerife Name: Collins E. MbashaStudent ID:
14014188Airworthiness Coursework 1Mister Iain Ritchie
IntroductionThe Tenerife airport disaster was a fatal runway
collision between two Boeing 747s on Sunday, March 27, 1977 at Los
Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife, one of the Canary
Islands. The crash killed 583 people, making it the deadliest
accident in aviation history. As a result of series events
beginning with organization influences, environmental conditions,
Communication failure that in time lead to unsafe acts resulting
this major accident.
It begins with an explosion at Gran Canarias Airport which
caused many aircrafts to be diverted to Los Rodeos Airport and
among them were the two Boeing 747s the KLM and Pan Am Flights, The
KLM being ahead of the Pan Am. After a time of waiting then the
Gran Canaria reopens. During this time the KLM Captain decides to
fuel the aircraft to cover up for the time they have lost so that
blocking the taxi way for the Pan Am at the same time , a dense fog
is developing at the airport, to the highest degree reducing
visibility.After the KLM is done fuelling up, the captain requests
to taxi the runway in order to take off. The control gives them a
go ahead to back taxi which means they are to taxi to the end of
the airport and make a 180 turn and take off, meanwhile the Pan Am
is to perform the same exercise but clear the runway at the 3rd
exit, But as they are both taxing the runway the Pan Am Captain
looks at the exit C3 on the map and it seems that the turn cannot
be made due to the size of the aircraft and calls the tower again
to confirm if it was the first exit which they had already missed,
meanwhile the KLM is approaching the end of the runway. When the
control tower tells the Pan Am to take the third exit insisting 1 2
3 on your left, the captain then copies this as C4 since they
already had passed the 1st exit making C4 the 3rd exit on the left
from their current location.As the KLM is making their turn at the
end of the runway positioning itself for takeoff and the Pan Am was
taxing behind them slowing down due to the thick dense fog looking
for the exit C4. Now the KLM request ATC clearance and take off,
the tower gets back to them with ATC clearance. While the KLM first
officer was reading back the ATC clearance to the tower, the KLM
captain released the brakes and said, We gaan (we go), and began
the take-off roll. After completing the ATCs read back, the first
officer said either, We are now ehtaking off or We are now at
take-off. (The tapes of transmission were not clear). The pan Am
captain listening the radio conversations and says that We are
still on the runway and from the tower the controller asks them to
report when clear meanwhile the KLM is already speading up to take
off a kilometre ahead until with the Pan Am which was still taxing
on the runway.As we can see on the figure below illustrates how the
event went down at Los Rodeos airport.
ConclusionAs we look up to the series of events from the back
taxi we have difficulties in weather condition which makes the 2
aircrafts to rely on the runway lights and radio communication
without any visibility between themselves and between them and the
control tower, but visibility is not a problem if communication is
excellent. Now let us look at it from a further point of view, the
Bomb explosion that led to the diversion in the beginning to a
small congested airport where by so much time is lost by the
scheduled flights building stress to all parties the control tower
handling the situation at the airport and the Captain of the
respective flights. Due to ambiguous language fatigue from long
journey and these stress factors KLM pilot blinded this novel
situation, he took it easy i must say despite the communication
misunderstanding that he was not cleared for takeoff, he should
have checked that the Pan Am was cleared off the runway, also his
decision to fuel the aircraft at Los contributed to the fatal
accident by making the aircraft heavy thus a struggle to take off
even when they spotted Pan Am.
References1. The Human risk week 2 pptx. slide 172.
http://goflightmedicine.com/tenerife-disaster/3.
http://www.businessinsider.com/deadliest-plane-crash-in-history-2014-3?IR=T4.
Report on canary islands crash.pdf. pages 14,16,17 and 235. THE
FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN PERFORMANCE.pptx. slide 136. Video Two Jumbos
Collide In Canary Islands Crash of the Century mayday season 3
Episode 4.7.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19770327-1
