TV Program Description
Original PBS Broadcast Date: October 17, 2006
On March 27, 1977, on the island of Tenerife, two fully loaded
747 jumbo jets collided on a fog-blanketed runway, claiming
the lives of 583 people in what is still the deadliest crash
in aviation history. Now, almost 30 years later, near misses
on the ground are the leading cause of aviation accidents,
raising the question of what can be done to improve runway
safety. Featuring moving interviews with the few survivors of
the disaster and with top accident investigators, this program
examines the fateful confluence of events that led to the
Tenerife tragedy and its continuing relevance for air travel
today.
Three decades ago, the facts of the accident were shocking and
inexplicable. In thick fog, a KLM 747 began an unauthorized
takeoff, slamming into a Pan Am 747 that was taxiing on the
same runway. The best and the brightest pilots, including
KLM's senior captain and head of safety, were at the helm. How
could such an accident possibly occur?
"The Deadliest Plane Crash" looks back at the crucial four
hours before the disaster, when an improbable chain of
coincidences, bad luck, and misjudgments snowballed into
tragedy. The situation sounds eerily current. It all began
with a terrorist bomb threat to the airport on Gran Canaria
Island that diverted air traffic to Tenerife. The small
Tenerife airport was soon overcrowded while its control tower
was understaffed. Thick fog rolled in and destroyed visibility
as the KLM plane loaded up a full tank of fuel. A series of
unclear communications and time pressure on the Dutch crew
ultimately contributed to the KLM captain's fatal
error—one that violated the fundamental rules of
aviation and baffled expert investigators for decades
afterwards. (See
The Final Eight Minutes.)
The program reassesses the evidence and conclusions of the
official accident investigations by the Spanish and Dutch
authorities. It features gripping firsthand testimony and
personal stories from Pan Am co-pilot Robert Bragg, flight
attendant Joan Jackson, and passengers who somehow fought
their way out of the blazing, disintegrating Pan Am 747.
NOVA also investigates the improvements in runway safety that
have been made in the three decades following the Tenerife
crash. Disturbingly, runway incursions in the U.S. are still
an everyday event—about 325 of them each year.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Mark Rosenker
discusses new safety technology and shares NTSB's chilling
forensic animation that reconstructs recent runway scares. In
1999 two planes at Chicago O'Hare airport missed each other by
80 feet, and a similar near miss happened in 2005 in Boston.
In an age when air travel safety is under constant scrutiny,
"The Deadliest Plane Crash" vividly dramatizes the need for
renewed vigilance both on the ground as well as in the air.
Program Transcript
Program Credits
