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Introduction
The Tenerife disaster is often referred to as the crash of the century. The tragedy took place on March 27, 1977, in Los Rodeos Airport on one of the Canary Islands (Weick, 2001). 583 people have lost their lives during the attempt of KLM Boeing 747 to take off and it’s colliding with Pan Am 747 that was taxiing at that very moment (Misra, 2008). KLM was first to land; Pan Am landed around 40 minutes after it. The latter was expected to park behind KLM and could not depart before it. When the passengers of Pan Am returned on board and KLM started taking off, Pan Am was directed to another, parallel, runway. The controllers denied its request to stay off until the KLM departure and ordered them to pull in behind the KLM plane (Weick, 2001). The KLM plane made a 180-degree turn and collided with Pan Am 13 seconds after this. This tragedy remains the deadliest plane crash in the history of aviation (Ripley, 2008). The whole chain of events contributed into this disaster; they ranged from bad weather, human errors, fatigue, and impatience to the lack of communication between the captain and the crewmembers in the case with KLM flight.
KLM Crew Errors
One of the greatest contributing factors was the KLM captain’s ignoring the concerns of his crewmembers. Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zante was the chief pilot and a rather senior person. He behaved arrogantly for he got used to other people obeying his orders due to his age and experience (besides, he was Dutch, and, in accordance with this people’s traditions, the higher authority should not be questioned). This accounted for the steep command hierarchy that could be observed on board (Nemeth, 2008) and the failure of the first officer to be assertive because of his fear of the captain. Neither the first officer nor the flight engineer dared to make objections when Pan Am reported about its not leaving the runway yet and the KLM captain misunderstanding the reply and deciding to take off.
ATC Communications
Communication between the ATC and the captains of two planes was another contributing factor. The tower did not expect the KLM plane to take off this is why, on hearing the captain’s “We are now at takeoff position” (Martin, 2002, p. 191), they interpreted it incorrectly and the controller replied, “O.K., … stand by for taking off … I will call you” (Weick, 2001, p. 127). The second failure took place when Pan Am said they would report when they are clear of the takeoff runway and the KLM captain misinterpreted this. Thus, when the flight engineer asked him ‘“Is he not clear then, that Pan Am?,” the pilot replied, “Yes”’ (Martin, 2002, p. 192). Moreover, blocked transmissions also affected the event much. In the case with the Tenerife disaster, two important transmissions have been blocked, one made by ATC that informed KLM to stand by and hold the position and the other made by the Pan AM’s pilot who informed that they were still on the runway. If the transmissions were not blocked, this could have prevented the catastrophe.
Fatigue and Weather
Two final contributing factors were fatigue and weather. Due to the thick fog, the pilots of both the planes could be guided only by the ATC controllers. In addition, the crew members (of KLM, especially) were exhausted and the captain was rather impatient. The first time he even wanted to take off without clearance and, even though his copilot reminded him of this, he still decided to take off while the latter was getting the permission.
Conclusion
Therefore, the greatest contributing factors into the Tenerife plane crash were human errors (of both the crews and the ATC controllers), bad weather, fatigue, and impatience of the KLM captain to take off sooner.
Reference List
Martin, J. Organizational culture: Mapping the terrain. London: SAGE.
Misra, K.B. (2008). Handbook of performability engineering. London: Springer.
Nemeth, C.P. (2008). Improving healthcare team communication: building on lessons from aviation and aerospace. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Ripley, A. (2008). The unthinkable: who survives when disaster strikes and why. Ann Arbor: Michigan University.
Weick, K.L. (2001). Making sense of the organization. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
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