Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster
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Pushkin. Captain Jakob Veldhuyzen van Zanten opens up the throttles on his Boeing 747. We're going, says Captain van Zanten in Dutch. The big KLM plane starts to trundle down the runway. On board are 235 passengers, looking forward to a package holiday on the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco.

But their holidays have not got off to a good start, because they've had to land on the wrong Canary Island. They've been hanging around in the airport all afternoon, waiting to be able to take off for the short hop over to the right Canary Island. Finally, they're on their way. The crew were keen to get going. It's been a long day. They just want to drop off their passengers, pick up the ones who are waiting, and get back home to Amsterdam.

The 747 gathers pace. The runway is shrouded in thick fog. You can't see far ahead. The flight engineer says something. Captain Van Zanten doesn't catch it. What was that? He asked. It's not off yet, the Pan American. Off the runway, the flight engineer means. There's another 747, the Pan Am, that's also been hanging around all afternoon, waiting to make the hop from one island to the other.

The KLM plane taxied down the runway first, then turned around. The Pan American plane was going to taxi part of the way down the runway behind them, then turn off onto the first available exit. Was the Pan American plane definitely off the runway now? Ja, well, says Captain Van Zanten. Yes, well, is the literal translation, but the sense is, yes, of course. Perhaps with a hint of annoyance. Of course the Pan Am plane is off the runway.

Faster and faster goes the KLM plane. It passes 150 miles an hour, too fast now to abort the take-off. And then, through the fog, a shape begins to appear on the runway ahead of them. It's the Pan Am plane. Oh, God damn it, says Captain Van Zanten.

Here on Cautionary Tales, we've released an astonishing, tragic and, as always, instructive story about an aviation catastrophe that really should be better known. There are two parts to the Tenerife airport disaster. Why did the crash happen? And, given that the crash happened on the ground, why didn't more people escape?

To do those two parts justice, we've made two contrasting episodes. They'll have you on the edge of your seat. And they're both available now, ad-free, exclusively for subscribers to Pushkin+. If you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show page, on Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

I'll be back again on Friday on the main ad-supported feed. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my two-parter on the Tenerife airport disaster.