SHOW / EPISODE

THE TENERIFE AIRPORT DISASTER

Season 12 | Episode 235
24m | Oct 28, 2026

Episode 235 | Historical Events


In this History episode we focus on the Tenerife Airport Disaster of March 27th, 1977 — two Boeing 747s colliding on a fog-shrouded runway at a small Spanish island airport that was never meant to handle them, killing 583 people in the deadliest aviation accident in history. Neither plane was supposed to be at Los Rodeos. A terrorist bombing at their original destination had diverted them. The airport had one runway, no radar, no runway visibility system, and no taxiway markings.


We trace the specific chain of errors: KLM Captain van Zanten's decision to begin takeoff without clearance, the simultaneous radio transmissions that cancelled each other and prevented the warning from getting through, the flight engineer's question about whether Pan Am had cleared the runway — and van Zanten's answer before he accelerated. All 248 aboard the KLM aircraft died. Sixty-one survived from the Pan Am aircraft, all from the front section. The language changes Tenerife produced — the prohibition on the word "takeoff" except for the actual authorization to take off, the development of Crew Resource Management training — are in every cockpit flying today.



This podcast features narration with a synthetic AI voice.

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