![]() ![]() After an hour or so, Grubbs invited anyone on board to have a look in the 747’s cockpit.ĭozens of Pan Am’s curious and bored passengers eagerly accepted the offer. Trying not to jam up the airport’s small terminal building, Captain Grubbs, first officer Bragg and second officer George Warns kept the 380 passengers and 13 cabin crew members on board. Transcripts of the cockpit conversations later showed that the Pan Am crew members were able to fight that impatience better than the KLM crew. The search took hours, and those on board both airliners could be excused for becoming impatient. While the ultimately unsuccessful search for a second bomb was carried out, a dozen incoming aircraft, including the Pan Am and KLM 747s, were sent to nearby Tenerife to wait until Las Palmas officials gave the all-clear. A telephone threat to the airport switchboard made a reference to “bombs,” plural, and when that was relayed to airport officials, all incoming flights were postponed or diverted. But on that Sunday morning, shortly before the scheduled arrival of the two 747s, a Canary Islands terrorist group set off a bomb in Grand Canary’s Las Palmas airport terminal, causing injuries and panic. Both were carrying passengers to the beginning of their vacations on Grand Canary Island. Just for starters, neither of the airliners was even supposed to be on Tenerife, let alone on the same runway at the same time. But nearly a dozen mistakes and coincidences had to line up with dismaying precision in order for the disaster to happen. In succeeding years, much of the blame settled onto KLM’s captain, Jacob van Zanten, who began his takeoff roll before receiving air controller clearance. A photograph taken just before the crash shows Pan Am 1736 on the Los Rodeos apron with the KLM 747, “The Flying Dutchman,” just in front of it, blocking its way. How could this have happened? The crash of a single 747 would have been terrible a crash involving two jumbo jets was almost inconceivable. More than four decades later, the crash remains the worst disaster in aviation history, killing 583 people, injuring dozens and creating lifelong trauma for thousands. local time, Pan Am 1736 and KLM 4805 collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport in the Canary Islands. Grubbs and his crew were trying desperately to get out of the way, even if that meant getting stuck in the soft grass adjacent to the runway. The reason was simple and horrible: They had suddenly seen a KLM 747 speeding down the foggy runway directly toward them. In fact, driving the jet off the runway was exactly what Captain Victor Grubbs and his first officer, Robert Bragg, were trying to do. “The damn fool’s going to run off the runway!” she gasped to her husband Tony. Back in the economy section, passenger Isobel Monda immediately looked out the nearest window. The Pan Am jumbo jet was moving slowly down Tenerife’s single runway when the passengers felt a sudden sharp swerve to the left. Through the cabin, other passengers settled back for what was supposed to be a short flight from Tenerife to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, where everyone would be bused to their waiting cruise ship. Next to her, husband Warren slipped a magazine into his seatback pocket. ![]() Everyone on the chartered Boeing 747 was only minutes away from the beginning of a much-anticipated Mediterranean cruise vacation. In the first-class section, Caroline Hopkins finished letters she’d been writing to her two daughters. The Worst Plane Crash in History Was on Tenerife | HistoryNet CloseĪfter a several-hour delay, the passengers on Pan Am 1736 were finally relaxing-their plane was getting ready to take off. ![]()
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