Want to see more aviation disasters let me know in the comments 👇

Another ironic twist of luck: Added weight lengthens take off distance. If the KLM had not refueled then there's a better chance that he would have cleared the Pan Am.

There was a woman from the KLM plane who got off the plane at Tenerife and stayed there because her boyfriend lived there. Talk about lucky. Sadly her 2 friends got back on the KLM even though she asked them to stay with her.

One minor linguistic point, Van Zanten’s “oh, yes” on being questioned by the Flight Engineer as to whether the Pan Am was clear of the runway was actually the word “jawel”. This is a contradictory form of yes in Dutch, implying that he was dismissing his colleague’s concern and that there was no thought in his mind that the runway was not clear. I’m delighted to see that PD didn’t fall into the trap of discussing whether the Pan Am flight was at fault for taking the “fourth”exit from the runway rather than the “third”. The simple fact was that they had not reported clear of the runway so there was no reason for anyone to think that they were anywhere other than where they were i.e. still on the runway.

This incident really is the “worst case scenario”

All regulations are written in blood. Should not be forgotten.

Fun fact: In german the Swiss Cheese Model is called "Verkettung unglücklicher Umstände" which roughly translates to "chain of unfortunate circumstances" and I think this is another great description, because a chain can be broken by removing one segment, which would have prevented the disaster.

The cheese explanation definitely resonates with a lot of the disasters that you have covered. It’s usually the ‘perfect storm’ event that causes these issues.

While all on board the KLM flight perished, there was one KLM ticket holder who survived, because she lived on Tenerife and decided to simply take the roads home instead of going all the way to Gran Canaria. It's one of the stranger silver linings of this tragedy.

I think it was Kelsey, the 74Gear pilot who said that this catastrophy changed how pilots and ATCs communicated, hence the ROGER instead of the OK, always using the airplane ID, always repeating the answers to the ATC, etc just to avoid misunderstanding and confusion. It's interesting to learn that investigations are as much to give recommendations to step up the security work as much as finding the cause of an accident.

This is the most tragic and impactful case of "get there-itis" ever and my heart goes out to the famlies of loved ones lost that day. I can't imagine coming upon this scene either; just unimaginable to see two jumbos collide, especially at an airport that normally . Hopefully we never have another accident this serious. Also the swiss cheese example is the best visualization i've ever seen of how this sort of accident happens!

So many analogies for 'meet conditions': Perfect storm, stars line up, domino effect... The swiss cheese analogy is new to me, so thank you for the history and analogy!!

Remember, this accident happened before the days of CRM, where hierarchy and seniority were more important than team dynamics.

I'm an auditor and quality professional. Whenever I give training on root cause analysis, I always include this as an example. I gave a training course last month, and people were both amazed and horrified - but I bet they never forget it.

“Background noise could be heard from a football game being listened to” wait so your telling me that the people in ATC were watching FOOTBALL while giving instructions to aircraft at the most critical stage of any flight.

The most interesting part about this for me has always been how this shaped the airline industry after, with confirming what ATC said back to them, to confirm both sides heard correct and to make sure other aircraft hear it as well. It’s a terrible tragedy, but it definitely helped make the airline industry much safer.

I still think the KLM pilot was mostly at fault. Impatient to say the least.

A saying one of our pilots here has is, "All takeoffs are optional, all landings are mandatory." There is also the old Navy aviation saying that, "the superior pilot uses his superior judgment to save him from having to resort to his superior skills."

I was expecting the normal kind of intro you do but cheese is so much better

15:00 It is interesting that the airline wanted him to help investigate the accident, considering he already knew exactly what had happened, but he was no longer in a position to explain it to anyone. He was 100% at fault for the accident, having taken off without clearance.

Seriously man, you have a dangerous talent. You can make almost any disaster easy listening. Keep doing what you do! Your content is awesome and informative.

I've heard this one before, but even so, it's still a haunting disaster, a foggy runway, passengers on the PanAm not knowing what was going on, and the poor sods on the side the KLM was heading from, seeing a plane appear out of the fog, that being the last thing they see before they're dead, a horrific level of terror to experience, and I hope that they didn't suffer... :(

One women from KLM survived, she didn’t reboard the plane because she lived on that island and wanted to hang out with her boyfriend

As Tenerifian myself i remember as a little kid that something terrible had happened and a picture of two burned bodies on the front page of the local newspaper.

I understand that one of the side effects of this accident was that some of the surviving passengers were wearing polyester clothing which melted in the heat and stuck to their bodies making the burns worse. This is why you shouldn’t wear synthetics on airplanes. I’m sure this happened in other instances, but because of the widespread interest in this crash it was brought to the foreground.

Wow- when you posted the teaser, based on the photo I thought it was going to be the broken arrow incident near Palomares, Spain when a B-52 crashed and dropped 3-4 nuclear weapons in the ocean and over a field. So tragic and such a lesson in safety and one of its meanest adversaries: hubris.

Pls could you do the Leichhardt plane crash in Australia. The crash is the reason we have black boxes. Your audience could find it very interesting. Brilliant video

Going on a flight from NY to Cali this month so watching all the terrible, tragic things that can happen during transportation seems fit.

Also I remember watching a documentary about this in Dutch. And most of the blame back then was shifted on to ATC. They refused to blame the Dutch pilot.

Having seen this incident on multiple shows, I like your way of handling it best. All the info is presented clearly and well constructed. All your documentaries are very good. Thank you for your hard work.

There was also one passenger who got off the plane (Pan Am 1736) at Tenerife that lived there. I think she was the only survivor of her plane (because she was at home instead)

Remember the news reports as a 15 year old. 😬 Still get chills every time I see or hear something about the disaster. The next summer it was the Los Alfaques tanker explosion...

A terrible tragedy, and as another comment says, the next year there was yet another horrible accident in Spain at Los Alfaques, Tarragona, when a propylene tanker exploded next to a camping site that was full of people on their summer holidays engulfing the whole place in a literal cloud of fire. As another interesting event, the Palomares incident from 1966 is remarkable in including all at once: nuclear material, a broken arrow event, and aircraft collission in mid-air. The incident is briefly shown near the ending of the 'Men of Honor' film, with Cuba Gooding Jr. in the role of who would become the second African American master diver in the US Navy.

Title: "A brief history of..." Vid: 20+min I love this channel.

A lot of unfortunate things happened: If no attack it would not happen. If KLM didn’t refuel, it could in theory climbed away. And they won’t take off in fog. If PanAm didn’t miss the exit, the crash won’t happen. If no ATC communication confusion, it will not happen. Arguably, if KLM didn’t drag their tail on the runway they could have less damage and may survived. Regulators can’t do anything about anything other than the ATC communications, so that was exactly what they done. ATC communication had been revised to such extant it is now very professional, and a regular person won’t able to blend in “Catch me if you can” style.

I'm an American but because of this channel I've caught myself using "balls!" as an expletive lately.

I used to study human factors type psychology, and find myself watching this channel a lot. It's kind of nice to finally see someone else talk about the Swiss cheese model, because I was starting to feel silly explaining it to people. As one of my professors used to say, a lot of people will look at the "human error" explanation and then move on, when that's really when the investigation starts. I get that impression with the response a lot of people still have towards Veldhuyzen van Zanten, who's behavior represents one of the things that went wrong. It's easier to believe that an accident rests on the shoulders of one arrogant pilot, rather than a series of poorly controlled circumstances (such as listening to a football match during a busy, foggy afternoon). This reminds me of another accident where an aircraft crashed after take-off due to ice built up on the wings and lack of proper de-icing: From the cockpit recording it's clear that the co-pilot is trying to call this out to the captain, but he's not using clear language, trying to draw the captain's attention indirectly. So they take off without de-icing, and they crash. Apparently this was also a problem with Korean Airlines, as they defaulted to their own hierarchical culture, and the controlling aspect of the co-pilot was lost, leading to them then being one of the most unsafe airlines in the world. Thankfully, they corrected this a long time ago. Also, I developed a massive fear of flying from looking at all these accidents at an academic level. Frankly, I prefer nuclear disasters. But there's plenty of human factors going on in those, as well. Oh boy.

This disaster is such a perfect example of a perfect storm, so much went wrong that it only could end in disaster

Interesting you mention Human Factors, as that's one of the core safety courses now taught within the aviation community, with the dirty dozen being one of the core things taught within it.

Hotshot pilot: "Can we take off?" Tower: "...%^$#%$%!$% ...#@$@#" Hotshot pilot: "I'll take that as a Yes"

The nuclear navy uses the concept of 'defense in depth'. You never, ever depend on one person or one system to get something right. There must always be backups, whether it's keeping cooling water on a reactor or writing a good proposal for an ERP system update.

Experience is no guarantee that you will not make mistakes. If anything, I think the more experience someone has the greater the danger due to complacency or hubris. I have noticed that many people who have lengthy experience in a field tend to believe they are, for the lack of a better word, invulnerable. I see it in pilots, outdoors enthusiasts, drivers, engineers, medical professionals, etc. While a novice makes mistake due to not knowing, the experienced person makes mistakes by doing things fully aware of the dangers, but still ignoring the same dangers. It's as if the more experience they gain, the more they are willing to break the rules because they feel they are above the rules; that their experience makes them an exception.

The tragic part of the rule that was ostensibly put in place to protect pilots, the cap on hours at the controls, was weaponized against them, which was a major factor in this crash. When a rule like that can end up with the pilot in handcuffs, _wow_ is it missing the point.

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” That is the littoral definition of what happened at Tenerife

This disaster was mainly the fault of the arrogance of the KLM Dutch pilot.

I thought I'd seen everything about this incident but you've actually told me a couple of things I didn't know, good work as always. Thank you

"Here's a few seconds of PD pulled a children's dog toy along the carpet." Me, for some damn reason: :D

As horrible and apathetic as I probably sound... I can't be the only one who thinks the picture of the locomotive bursting out the station looks really bloody cool.

Your coverage of this is worthy of an episode of Mayday: Air Crash Investigation!! (or however it's called where you live, everyone knows that show ^^)

There have been several recent videos on this disaster, but yours included a number of details I hadn't heard before. Well done.

Sadly all that could fail, failed, and a curious detail, 2 years ago a part from the Pan Am plane was found 3km away from the original crash site, it was a horrible crash that even today it haunts the TNF Norte airport

I was wondering when you were going to get to this one. This still stands as the single largest loss of life on an airfield. This also changed the way ATC facilitates communications with aircraft. It was a lack of ground radar; the inability to see the field due to fog; miscommunication due to the tower controllers not fully understanding what they were being told; and a major rush by a airline captain who insisted on holding things up unnecessarily to refuel, which all came together with devastating effect. His arrogance that day was quite deadly. Excellent video!

I've always thought that in a circumstance where the controller cannot see the planes and the planes cannot see one another then the controller has to deal with the situation in a completely different way. This is something that doesn't apply during the day or during the night. Practically zero visibility is a unique situation. You cannot therefore treat it as the same as other situations. There are assumptions made during daylight and at night that planes can see one another and therefore will be able to avoid a catastrophic error like this. The controllers therefore have to modify the way they control the planes. They have to ensure that two planes are never on the runway at the same time and that they are clear at all times where each plane is and that each plane knows where the other planes are. They should order all planes to stop until they establish this and make sure everyone is clear about their locations. There should also be informational messages to all aircraft on the frequency instead of just giving a call sign for a particular plane , which tends to cause pilots to ignore messages not directed at them. If the controller had contacted the KLM pilot and said 'The Pan Am plane is still on the runway. When he is clear of the runway I will contact you. Please acknowledge' this would never have happened. It would be a non-standard message but it is a non-standard situation.

This was one of the best videos I’ve seen on KZfaq about Tenerife. Very well done. Hearing the impatience that led to this makes me angry, but I see how many factors also coincided to cause this disaster. I’m relieved it resulted in better procedures and safety standards. To those who passed, I hope you are resting in peace.

One passenger from the KLM flight Robina van Lanschot a tour guide didn't re-board the flight. Her boyfriend and her lived in the island and it made no sense for her to go to Gran Canaria and go back to Tenerife the next day. She left her ticket and luggage at the airport went home to her boyfriend. That saved her life.

A surprising number of channels have covered the Tenerife disaster over the past few months. I've been looking forward to PD's presentation since the teaser pic. As usual, I found PD's coverage informative, entertaining, and riveting. Bravo!

Excellent job on this, such a terrible incident. Love the cheese analogy!

It's always interesting to see different interpretations of this catastrophic disaster. Very nicely done!

Anything you cover is always extremely well done. That's why I love this channel. Very good

I'm so glad you covered this accident. I find it such an intriguing series of events and one I enjoy looking into to find out more about it since everything that could have possibly gone wrong in a plane crash went wrong and without even one such factor the incident wouldn't have occurred. I've only recently started watching your content and it's very much enjoyable for me as it's my kind of intrigue and enjoyment.

Another great video! Honestly, I don't think I've ever been disatisfied with any of your videos. Of course my heart goes out to friends and family members, even after all these years I'm sure the pain lingers.

My wife: what are you watching? Me: a video about a plane crash My wife: why is he talking about cheese? Me: its plainly difficult to explain

Long-term fan, Dutch, I'll admit that bias, but as aviation nut, fairly disappointed you didn't go into Crew Resource Management, which (lack of) was also a major contributor to the incident. It was the incident to completely change commercial aviation, because this incident lead to implementing CRM...

I've seen this accident broken down by so many different youtubers but I've been. Waiting to see you do it. Yours are always the best.

Loving the cheese intro! You make historical events much more interesting you need your own netflix series!!! I have started binge watching your channel while I'm sick!

Since learning about this I never fly with KLM. Their whole attitude were to deny responsibility from the beginning.

Yayyy!! This is by far one of my favourite documented disasters ever and i’m really happy you covered it :D I actually got interested in this genre of videos through aviation disasters and i’m really happy that my favourite channel on youtube covered one of the most interesting disasters

Well done video…in the report is the fact that the KLM actually refuelled mentioned as a contributing factor to the after crash fire and if the added weight of the fuel prevented the KLM flight from cycling quicker and possibly missing the PanAm flight? It’s a horrific example of compound errors.

That French train disaster you showed with the cheese looks very curious. Is that worthy of a video?

They should’ve had a clause in that work time law that said “the only exception is in an emergency situation.” Like this one. There were bombs involved and diverting the planes and the fog and so many factors.

As others here has commented this absolutely tragic but avoidable incident caused huge changes to happen in aviation. I have sat in so many CASA aviation safety briefings (my dad is a pilot I am his radio operator) that have either explicitly told this story or referred to it as an example of just how terrible things can get when pilots get tunnel vision or became complacent. While I still encounter pilot ego and hubris (I think they have to have at least some higher level to take huge engines with wings into the air) the impact of the ego and hubris can and is held in check by policies, procedures and standardisation. Most importantly the CRM or Crew Resource Management trying to remove hierarchy and seniority from the cockpit and instead everyone agrees on the next action and is encouraged to speak up in situations that they don't. While I hate the reality of safety being written in blood I am grateful that aviation is safer because of it. I just wish other areas of society took a page out of the aviation safety book. If they did we might not have tragedies like crowd crushes, bridge collapses or radiation accidents.

Ooh this one, I've watched something about this crash and this video makes it very easy to understand, great job as always 👏

I don't think the Swiss cheese analogy has anything to do with lining up the holes, but that the more slices you have the less likely it is to be able see all the way through one hole with each slice being a safety precaution

A perfect storm of events that bted an inevitable disaster. Sad that Van Zanten ignored all the warning signs that said to stay on the ground.

I've heard this story like 5 times now from different KZfaqrs. Yours is definitely the best imo.

I have known about and watched numerous accounts of this incident across the years. Yours is very well done and adds an extra detail (ref the apparent watching of a football match by somebody within earshot of comms) I had not previously known about. Thanks for covering this.

I had that puppy toy when i was young. To think I'd see it here of all places given I'm almost across the world in Latin America.

Someone was definitely hungry while thinking of an analogy for multiple safety system failure. Mmm, yes, cheese.

I was 15 when this disaster happened. I definitely recall hearing about it on the TV news. The loss of life was shocking.

''Crash of the century'' is one of my favorite disaster docos! The reconstructions are very well acted and overall production is great!

A good short information-packed account of the disaster. I’ve heard this also spurred the movement to Cockpit Resource Management (CRM).

That one pilot was absolutely moronic. Seems it mattered more to be on time rather than protect human lives.

Better than most TV shows I've! Straight to the Facts , No Tail Chasing to Stretch Watch Time

Excellent video, thanks for your work and sharing

The concorde crash "Air France Flight 4590" would be an interesting one.

The paramedic "teacher" for ethics had a great example for paying attention. He would take out and egg and hand it to someone in class, then every few minutes would take the egg and hand it to someone else. At the end of class he threw the egg to the floor. "This is what happens when we screw up with head and spinal injuries, people end up as scrambled eggs" is what he said afterwards

Oh man, little Snoopy! I had one of those as a child, I am 58 lol. Thanks for the memory.

It's incredible that anyone survived

Today I learnt that the Canary Islands had a separatist movement

Usually back-tracking as opposed to back-taxiing when you have to taxi then turn before takeoff

I absolutely love your channel. Keep up the amazing work. ✔✔✔

Fascinating Horror actually covered this some time ago themselves, also a very good video to be checked out!

The new law contributed to the disaster. The KLM pilot took on fuel and wasted half an hour because he was worried about this bit of bureaucracy. I understand that flying tired can be a problem, but bureaucratic laws put pressures on people. This leads them to look for work-arounds so that they can comply with the rules. If not for that law, the KLM plane would have taken off before the fog descended. The plane would have been an hour or so late getting home. The pilots might have been over the arbitrary limit, but they and their passengers would be alive. Bureaucrats need to understand that they shouldn't be making absolutes. Physics and mechanics are absolutes. Two planes trying to occupy the same space at the same time is a disaster. That's an absolute. A plane fully loaded with fuel not being able to take off as quickly and burning more completely on crashing is an absolute. The problems of seeing in a fog are absolutes. Bureaucratic rules should never be an absolute.

Did you know Flight 4805 had one survivor? (I should have posted this on the Patreon, my bad) Robina van Lanschot was a tour guide who opted to make her own way home to Tenerife rather than reboard the plane, a decision that although was apparently against the rules would ultimately save her life. Her remarkable escape is mentioned on both the Wikipedia page and the Air Crash Investigation episode Disaster at Tenerife. As an add, that terrorist group must have been sh*tting itself when they heard the fallout from their bombs.

Awesome video, love the way you explain these. More Plesse!

I remember when this happened. So sad for all involved. The swiss cheese model is an excellent way of explaining how a cascade event occurs. Great video

Planely Difficult.

"Now I've got you thinking about tasty cheese. You might be asking what has this got to do with anything?" Except that we've watched your videos before. Heck, this could practically be the Swiss Cheese channel. ;)

I do remember some discussion about the fact the KLM captain was also a simulator training captain and therefore was issuing the air traffic control instructions in the simulator and this is thought to be a factor in the accident, he basically issued the clearance in his mind just like he was doing in the simulator

The most annoying thing is the people trying to say that the captain who tried more than once to take off without clearance who had a toxic relationship as captain and actively ignored standard safety precautions by choosing to act ignorance is excused over a crew that had active communication with ATC.