What REALLY Caused the Tenerife Airport Disaster?! The WORST Aviation Accident in History

Ironic how the worst Aviation disaster in history didnt even happen in the air.

You have made an excellent documentary about the accident on Tenerife. Thank you for your expertise. I am a survivor of this accident. I am 1 of 75 initial survivors and was 1 of 14 walking survivors who were treated at Candelario Hospital and released. In addition, I am 1 of 2 photographers that Sunnday afternoon. The post impact photo that is in this video is one of mine. I give you my permission to use it. (My film was stolen by a Dutch fellow named Hans Hofman who sold copies in western Europe.) I was sitting in 30C, the row in front of the exit door over the wing. Upon impact, part of the ceiling disappeared and I climbed out of the hole above my seat onto the left wing. I found a woman on the wing sliding towards the inboard engine which was on fire. I pulled her further out on the wing, tossed her off the leading edge, jumped off and ran. Once I got away I stopped and looked back. Then I saw KLM and realized they had run ito us. Just then a fireball exploded on the wingtip of Pan Am and the whole plane caught on fire. I ran further away then stopped and took 5 photos of the plane to document what I was seeing. In 2015 I released a book about my experience and more titled "Never Wait for the Fire Truck" by David Yeager Alexander which is available on Amazon. I also wrote about aircraft interior safety and runway safety. Also, I was interviewed by Jon Ziomek for his book, shown in your video, titled "Collision On Tenerife". Thanks again for your good work.

I knew the Pan Am Co-Pilot Bob Bragg quite well. He was injured but eventually went back to work. The Captain of the Pan Am flight, Victor Grubbs, did fly again, but the weight he carried at the loss of his passengers weighed heavily on him until he died.

The surviving flight attendants on the pan am were heroes. One of them was literally throwing people off the wing because they were hesitating and she knew they would die if they didnt jump. If the pan am crew didnt turn when they would have lost everyone

Captain Van Zanten's picture was used in KLM's ads and he was so highly regarded that the Dutch investigators tried to contact him to assist in their investigation, not knowing that he was in command of that fateful 747.

I was a flight attendant for Pan AM at that time . That night I flew to Brazil( Rio de Janeiro) two of my friends were working that flight and both of them didn't survive. I learned of the tragedy late in the afternoon while I checked with the hotel lobby of any changes to my schedule. The clerk informed me of the tragedy. It was a sad time for all of us at Pan AM. I still think about my friends. Rip Carol Thomas and Miguel Torrech my dear friends. I can't believe that I am still around after all these years. I quit Pan am in 1982 and went back to the university for a master degree and became and educator. It was a wonderful time my ten years with Pan AM,. I saw the world and became a better person . Thanks to all those who made it possible for me to have had such a wonderful experience. Soon I will see my friends, again. May God bless them all.

Yeah, that shit with the taxiways never made any sense to me. "yeah never mind the gentle highspeed turn-off on C4, take your 200-foot jet to C3, and make the stupidest possible maneuver known to mankind with it".

The somewhat awkward part of this accident was when this happened, KLM immediately suggested putting Jacob van Zaanten on the investigation team to help understand what happened. ...which well... they couldn't.

These stories haunt me in a bad way for a while until they haunt me in a good way. The irony that the Dutch pilot was hurrying to get home to his wife is one of those lessons I'll take to heart the next time I'm behind the wheel of a car rushing to get somewhere. We know we all do it. Better late than never.

Many years ago when I was a kid… I believe it was a 737 we were in.. we were about to land in Switzerland and just before the landing gear touched the runway the pilot violently pulled up. So hard it physically hurt and harder than you’d ever guess a commercial jet could maneuver. A bunch of people screamed. It was because someone made a mistake and another plane started crossing the runway in front of us. Shout out to that pilot 🤞

This was by far the most comprehensive account of a tragedy which left a scar on aviation for decades. A truly epic video, well done.

It feels a bit unfair from the Panam point of view: - Can we come in? No. KLM has filled us to capacity. - Can we leave? No. KLM is updating their fuel. - Okay, can we go around? No. There is not enough space because of the way KLM parked. - Why is it taking so long? Oh, that's because they're in a hurry.

Approximately 2 years after the accident, I had the opportunity to listen to a Pan Am survivor speak about how she was able to escape the burning aircraft. The one thing I most remember her talking about during her lecture was the intense heat and how many people she witnessed being burned to death. She was among those who had to make that 6-meter jump, during which she broke her ankle. She was one of the lucky ones.

It is absolutely heartbreaking to consider how Captain Van Zanten’s urge to get home to his family contributed in part to their losing him. As trivial as it sounds, the saying is true: “An unguarded minute has an accident in it.” Thanks as always for your thorough, respectful, insightful analysis.

It's very depressing to me that even though I obviously knew that the crash already happened, and that the hundreds of people on board those flights were already dead, that I hoped for the entire second half of the video that someone would realize the mistake and that it would be one of those "close calls" instead of full on tragedies.

so frustrating to listen to. the ambiguity in the communication, the assumptions made, and the KLM crew. most frustrating part is the KLM copilot and engineer both have a bad feeling that they shouldn't be taking off, both speak up to the pilot, but both do so in an unconfident way that fails to curb the pilot's misplaced confidence. it's very relatable. i absolutely hate that feeling when i know something bad is about to happen, i try to speak up about it, but someone with more experience or authority than me just dismisses my concerns because it's not what they want to hear

To think that it could have been avoided by the KLM captain simply asking on the frequency, "PanAm, are you clear of the runway?" I know it's not SOP for aircraft to talk directly to each other, but under these conditions, given the poor visibility, the confusion, and the language problems with the controller, it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

As I have mentioned before I spent 30 years as an airline pilot and nearly 40 years working in the technical arena. This accident happened during that time so I was and am pretty well informed about the event. It is rare for me to read or watch an account of an aircraft accident in which I can find no error of fact or interpretation but this, as in your other videos, is an exception. Your ability to convey the significant points of an accident concisely and accurately is remarkable. Congratulations and thank you.

You would think that considering the weather conditions, the KLM pilot would be 100% positive that he had a clear runway ahead of him. He didn't do that.

As a pilot student from tenerife, los rodeos has been my training airport since flight hour 0, such a sad event that occurred there, they will never be forgotten. Thanks for telling the story in such a profesional way