DISASTERS: Flashback

A chilling plane crash report

On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s collided on the fog-shrouded runway of Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife, the largest of Spain's Canary Islands. The disaster was the worst in aviation history, with a death toll of 583, including all aboard KLM's Rhine River and all but 61 people on Pan Am's Clipper Victor. Last week the Spanish government released the findings of an 18-month investigation of the crash. The verdict: KLM Captain Jacob Veldhuizen Van Zanten's decision to start his takeoff run without tower clearance was the "fundamental cause" of the accident.

The weather was dismal in Tenerife that day, with low-scudding clouds and fog sharply reducing visibility. From the western end of the strip, shrouded from the view of both the control tower and the KLM crew, Pan Am Captain Victor Grubbs was nosing his 747 through the mist toward the Dutch plane. Twice Grubbs radioed the tower, on a frequency shared by KLM, that he was still on the runway.

Before the tower had received those messages, KLM's Veldhuizen told his copilot to ask for takeoff clearance. Suddenly and inexplicably, Veldhuizen opened the throttles. Flustered, the copilot radioed the tower: "We are now at takeoff." Since clearance had not been given, the tower assumed that KLM was simply at takeoff position and replied, "Standby ... I will call you." That order coincided with a Pan Am message that the Clipper was still taxiing on the runway, but the information was garbled by an unexplained whistling sound.

In the rolling KLM jet, the flight engineer twice asked, "Is he [Pan Am] not clear then?" Emphatically, Veldhuizen replied, "Yes." His KLM plane hurtled down the runway. Suddenly the Pan Am 747 loomed ahead. It was too late: the KLM jumbo smashed into the Clipper.

How could a veteran pilot like Veldhuizen have made such a drastic mistake? Harried by an already lengthy delay on Tenerife, the study speculated, he may have rushed his takeoff to avoid violating a KLM rule against crew overtime. Erratic weather conditions may also have pressed him. The radio "whistle" could have blipped out some essential communications, and imprecise language, by both tower and KLM crew, may have confused matters even further.

The Dutch Aviation Service, a government agency, promptly described the Tenerife report as "very one-sided" and promised to publish its own analysis. Meanwhile, liability questions in the crash are still being settled: insurers have already paid out $50 million and 89 cases are pending.