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UNHINGED Part 44 - '13 Seconds' - From The Padded Cell Podcast · The Padded Cell Podcast

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: You found unhinged the corner of the asylum library where you can stare into the dark, but the dark stares back.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where every story makes us question why the kindest faces can hide the darkest intentions, and how history bleeds with cruelty, curiosity, and carnage.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: These are stories of the broken, the brilliant, and the beyond redemption.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Tales that linger long after lights out.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready, let me take you somewhere uncomfortable.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Enter unhinged.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: On the afternoon of the 27th of March 1977, two giant aircraft sat on a small, crowded runway in the Canary Islands.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Both were Boeing 747s, not little planes, not commuter aircraft.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: These were the kings of the sky.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Huge, glamorous, expensive, almost obscene machines.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of aircraft that made passengers feel like the future had arrived, and somebody had handed them a boarding pass.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: One belonged to KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Flight 4805.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It had come from Amsterdam and was meant to be going to Las Palmas and Gran Canaria.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The other belonged to Pan American World Airways, Flight 1736.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It had started in Los Angeles, stopped at New York, and was also heading for Las Palmas.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Neither of them was supposed to be at Los Rodillas Airport on Tenerife.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is the first thing to understand.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: This disaster did not begin with one dramatic mechanical failure.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It began with inconvenience, delay, with a security scur somewhere else, with passengers waiting, with crews trying to do their jobs, with an airport too small for what was suddenly landed on top of it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then slowly the clouds came down.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The runway disappeared into fog.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The radio became crowded.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And inside one cockpit, one of the most respected pilots in the world made a decision that killed 583 people.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Sparch investigation later concluded that the fundamental cause was that the KLM captain took off without clearance, failed to obey the tower's standby for takeoff instruction, and did not stop even after Pan Am reported they were still on the runway.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is Unhinged Part 44.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Tenerife Air Disaster.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: At lunchtime that Sunday, the original destination airport, Las Palmas Airport on Gran Canaria, was closed after a bomb exploded in the passenger terminal.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: A warning suggested a second bomb might exist, so aircraft heading there were diverted to Tenerife.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Los Rodeos was not built for this sudden invasion of wide-bodied aircraft.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Its apron became packed.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Planes were squeezed into spaces they would not normally occupy.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Taxiways became blocked.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: The airport had a single main runway.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And because of congestion, aircraft had to use that runway not just for takeoff, but also for taxiing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that little detail matters here.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: A runway is meant to be a reserved space.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a strip where aircraft accelerate, lift, land, and stop.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But on this day, because the airport was overwhelmed, the runway became a road.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM aircraft landed first.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Pan Am aircraft landed later.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Pan Am crew wanted to leave as soon as Las Palmas reopened, but they couldn't get out because the KLM aircraft was blocking the route.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM passengers had left the aircraft during the delay and then reboarded, apart from one passenger who chose not to reboard.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then the aircraft was refuelled.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: The FAA summary notes that KLM loaded 55,500 litres of fuel, enough to avoid refueling later at Las Palmas and continue back towards Amsterdam.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That fuel decision becomes one of the most grim details that feels ordinary at the time, and then monstrous afterwards.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because more fuel means more weight, and more weight means a longer takeoff roll.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: More fuel means more fire.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when this accident happened, the KLM aircraft was heavily fueled.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: By late afternoon, Las Palmas had reopened.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone wanted to leave.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone had been delayed.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was now dealing with worsening weather.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Low cloud and fog were moving across Los Rodez, reducing visibility so badly that the tower could not clearly see the aircraft on the runway.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM 747 was cleared to taxi down the runway, backtrack, and turn around into takeoff position.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then Pan Am 1736 was also told to taxi along the same runway behind it and leave at the third exit.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just pause there.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Two 747s, same runway, fog.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: One ahead, one behind.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The tower can't properly see them, and the crews can't properly see each other.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: The airport is congested.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: The radio is busy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The instructions are not as crisp as they would be today.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the Pan Am cockpit, the crew were trying to work out which exit they were supposed to take.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The instruction was to leave the runway at the third taxiway.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in thickening fog at an unfamiliar airport with angled taxiways and poor visibility, that was not as simple as it sounds.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Spanish findings later noted that Pan Am not leaving at the third intersection was a contributing factor, although it also said this was not very relevant to the fundamental cause because Pan Am had not reported clear and had twice indicated it was still on the runway.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ahead of them, KLM 4805 reached the end of the runway, turned around and lined up.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine being in that cockpit.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're facing down the runway, you're delayed, your passengers are waiting.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The weather is getting worse, your duty time's looming.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You are the most respected men in your profession.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're ready to go.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But Pan Am is still somewhere ahead of you in the fog.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: At 17.05 and 44 seconds to be precise, KLM reported ready for takeoff and received a route clearance.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: An air traffic control clearance for what to do after departure.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the same thing as takeoff clearance.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM crew read it back and added the now infamous phrase.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: The tower replied, Okay, stand by for takeoff, I will call you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: At nearly the same moment, Pan Am transmitted that there was still taxing down the runway.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The overlapping transmissions produced like a radio interference in the KLM cockpit.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the moment.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not the explosion, not the flames.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: This a phrase that could be heard two ways.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: An air traffic controller saying standby.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Another aircraft saying they are still on the runway.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: A radio overlap.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: A captain who has already released the brakes.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM aircraft began its takeoff role.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: The tower then told Pan Am to report when runway clear.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Pan Am replied that they would report when clear.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: That exchange was audible in the KLM cockpit, and the KLM flight engineer questioned it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, is Pan Am not clear then?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: The captain answered emphatically that they were.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The FAA notes impact occurred around 13 seconds later.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: 13 seconds.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is all.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Enough time to feel doubt.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Enough time to ask again.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Enough time to stop.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly not by then, but enough time for the mind to understand that something has gone horribly wrong.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Pan Am crew saw the KLM landing lights emerging from the fog only seconds before impact.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to turn left off the runway and applied power.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM crew saw Pan Am too late, unfortunately, and tried to rotate sharply, dragging the tail for around 65 feet before becoming airborne.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the aircraft could not climb clear.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It struck the Pan Am 747, turning through it, and then crashed back onto the runway, sliding and bursting into flames.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Every person on the KLM aircraft died.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: On Pan Am 335 people died, but 61 survived.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And here's where Tenerife becomes more than an air crash.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because it did not happen because one person didn't know how to fly a plane.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM captain, Jacob Veldhuizen van Zanden, was not inexperienced.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was highly respected, a senior KLM training captain.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: The FAA summary says the investigation considered his prestige relevant because it may have made it harder for the co-pilot and flight engineer to challenge him strongly when something felt wrong.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the frightening bit.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Competence does not make someone immune to error.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Stasis can make error harder to stop.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in a cockpit, that that could be fatal.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it was.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: It might make people feel too awkward to say, hang on, are we sure about this?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Telenref is often described as a disaster of miscommunication, but that's a little bit too neat for me.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was communication, yeah, but it was the fog, the congestion in this small airport, and probably stress.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was time pressure, it was this radio overlap.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: But beneath all of the blame are human beings.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's step back.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody aboard either aircraft knew they were about to become part of history.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: The passengers certainly didn't.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Most were probably doing exactly what passengers still do today.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Looking out the windows, reading, talking, playing cards, wondering how much longer they'd be delayed.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps already thinking about hotels, meals, or the crews many of them were heading to in Gran Canaria.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Others were simply staring into the thick white fog outside, unable to see anything at all.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: For many on the Panama Aircraft, it probably felt as though they were just taxiing around another airport after an annoying diversion.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing remarkable.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing frightening.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing that would make the evening news.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Inside the KLM cockpit, however, events were now moving far too quickly to reverse.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: The four Pratt and Whitney JT-9D engines were producing enormous thrust.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: The aircraft weighing well over 340 tons after refueling was accelerating down the runway.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: The captain's attention was fixed almost entirely ahead.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: The co-pilot was Martin Instruments.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: The flight engineer was still uneasy, but unease just isn't enough.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not when an aircraft is accelerating towards takeoff speed.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the Pan Am crew was still trying to identify that third exit.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Victor Grubbs had slowed slightly, searching through the fog for the taxiway.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: His first officer, Robert Bragg, was peering through the windscreen, trying to make out signs and runway markings.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Flight engineer George Warnes was doing the same.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Visibility had become so poor that they were reliant on instinct almost as much as eyesight.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: The taxiway they'd been instructed to use had already passed.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They were now approaching the next exit.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little further.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just another few seconds.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: If only they'd had another few seconds.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Then Bragg saw something.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not clearly.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: At first, almost ghost like.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Two bright white beams floating inside the fog.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then they grew larger.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rapidly.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Much too rapidly.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: His words have been recorded in various accounts over the years.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Look at him! God damn, that son of a bitch is coming.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those moments where trained professionalism simply evaporates.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because this wasn't a checklist, this wasn't a procedure.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: This was raw human shock.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Grubbs reacted instantly.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't freeze.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't hesitate.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: He slammed the throttle fully forward.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: At almost exactly the same moment, he hauled the control column sharply to the left.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: His instinct was simple.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Get off the runway.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Anywhere, grass, taxiway, mud, it didn't matter.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't be where that aircraft is about to arrive.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Back on KLM four eight zero five, Captain Van Zanten also saw the Pan Am for the first time.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Until that exact instant both aircraft had effectively been invisible to one another.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that realization.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not a distant aircraft.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not one safely clear out the way.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: A Boeing 747 directly ahead, occupying the same strip of concrete.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: His reaction was equally instinctive.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: He pulled back hard.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Earlier than normal.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Much earlier.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: His hope was obvious.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Leap over it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: A fully loaded Boeing 747 isn't designed to become airborne that quickly, though.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: As the nose pitched forward, the tail struck the runway with enormous force.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Investigators later measured a scrape stretching around 20 meters, about 65 feet along the tarmac.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Metal showered behind the aircraft.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: The tail bump had disintegrated.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: The rear fuselage was damaged, but the aircraft didn't leave the ground.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: For one extraordinary moment it looked as though it might actually clear the Pan Am.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: The underside of the KLM aircraft slammed into the top of the Pan Am.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Its landing gear smashed through the American aircraft.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Engines tore through the upper fuselage.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: The right side engines ripped across the passenger cabin almost like giant industrial blades.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: The upper deck was destroyed.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: The cockpit of the Pan Am remained briefly intact.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: The center section simply ceased to exist.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Fuel erupted everywhere.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands upon thousands of litres of aviation fuel instantly atomized into a burning cloud.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: The explosion could be seen through the fog from miles away.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: That thick, thick fog.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how enormous that explosion must have been.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM aircraft never recovered.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Already damaged from the tail strike, now missing engines and suffering catastrophic structural damage, it continued briefly through the air before crashing back onto the runway, around 150 metres beyond the collision point.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: It skiddered, broke apart, rolled, burst into an enormous fireball, and the fuel it had loaded only an hour or so earlier became an inferno.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of the 248 people aboard died.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: No exceptions.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not one survivor.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Panama aircraft, despite suffering catastrophic damage, remained partially intact.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that made all the difference.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of one gigantic fireball consuming everything immediately, a part of the fuselage was still recognizable.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Some passengers had the chance, a very small chance, but a chance nonetheless.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the scene inside though.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: The lights must have failed.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some emergency lights, but would you be able to see anything through the smoke?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Seats collapsed, the roof disappeared, burning fuel pouring through the cabin.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: People who had been reading newspapers seconds earlier suddenly found themselves in darkness, filled with fire.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: The heat would have been overwhelming almost instantly.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Survivors later described people screaming, luggage falling from overhead lockers, and thick black smoke filling the cabin in moments.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Many couldn't even work out which way was up.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one fact often gets overlooked in this story.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Several survivors escaped through holes that didn't exist until the collision created them.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The aircraft had literally been torn open.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: People climbed over twisted aluminium, jumped from broken fuselage sections, some dropped several metres to the ground below, and many suffered broken bones and burst, cuts, smoke inhalation, shock.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But they were alive.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Flight engineer George Warren survived.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Victor Grubbs survived.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so did First Officer Robert Bragg.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: That in itself is extraordinary.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: The three men sitting directly in the path of the collision somehow lived.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Their section of the aircraft remained just intact enough to allow escape before the fire consumed everything.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Several cabin crew also performed extraordinary acts, direction passengers through openings in the wreckage, despite the chaos around them.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Out of the 396 people aboard the Pan Am flight, like I said before, only 61 survived.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: That means over 84% of those on board lost their lives, and some died instantly.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Others succumbed to burns or smoked before rescuers could reach them.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: The speed of the fire was devastating.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Modern cabin materials are vastly more fire resistant, partly because of accidents like Tenerife.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, imagine you're working in the control tower.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: You hear the explosion.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: The radio suddenly falls silent.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't see anything.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Only the fog.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Controllers knew something terrible had happened.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: They had absolutely no idea where.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Initially, they believed perhaps one aircraft had crashed after takeoff.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't immediately comprehend that two fully loaded 747s had collided on the runway itself.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Without ground radar, they were effectively blind.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Fire crews raced towards the flames.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Even they struggled to understand what they were seeing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: The first inferno they encountered was the remains of the KLM aircraft.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: They naturally concentrated their efforts there.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody could survive inside that fire.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't yet realize another aircraft lay further back through the fog, still burning.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Still containing survivors.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: The smoke and weather masked the second wreckage.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those lost minutes have haunted many rescuers ever since.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they did anything wrong, but because they physically couldn't see what was happening in front of them.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, they found the Pan Am.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Passengers were already climbing out, some covered in fuel, some with clothing burned away, some carrying children, and some helping complete strangers, as human beings generally do in these disastrous situations.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Others wandering across the grass in total shock, unable to process what had happened.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Many survivors later said they had no memory of escaping at all.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma had simply erased it.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: One survivor later described turning around after reaching safety.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Only then did they truly see the scale of the disaster.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Two jumbo jets, both destroyed, both in flames, the fog glowing orange, black smoke pouring into the evening sky.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just didn't resemble an airport anymore.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: It resembled a battlefield.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: By the time every fire had finally been extinguished, 583 people were dead.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: It remains the deadliest accident in the history of commercial aviation.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because hundreds of tiny human factors aligned at exactly the wrong moment.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And investigators were only just beginning to understand how many there actually were.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of the strangest things about Terrif is this.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: By the following morning, everyone already thought they knew what had happened.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: A KLM captain had taken off.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: A Pan Am aircraft had still been on the runway.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: They collided, case closed.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Except, accident investigators hate simple answers because the answer often isn't simple.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Their job isn't to decide who deserves the blame.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is to make sure it never happens again.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And those are two completely different things.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you stop at the captain made a mistake, you've learned almost nothing.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because if that's the whole story, then the solution is impossible.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings make mistakes, they always have, always will.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So investigators wanted to know something much more useful.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: How did a highly experienced crew, an experienced control tower, and another highly experienced crew all arrive at the same disaster together?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Spain led the official investigation, assisted by experts from the Netherlands, the US, Boeing, Pratt and Whitney, and other aviation specialists.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: The flight recorders were recovered, cockpit voice recorders were covered, radio recordings survived, witness statements poured in.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Within days, investigators were beginning to build almost a second-by-second timeline.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing became immediately obvious.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody had intended to break the rules.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone believed they were trying to operate safely.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that sounds impossible with such a huge disaster until you realize that every person involved had slightly different information.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: The air traffic controller believed KLM was waiting.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM captain believed he had what he needed to depart.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Pan Am crew believed KLM was still stationary.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Each group had built a different picture of the reality.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody was lying, nobody was deliberately ignoring instructions, their mental pictures simply didn't match up.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Investigators call this a loss of shared situational awareness.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of those technical phrases that sounds dry on paper, but is terrifying in practice.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because once different people are operating inside different versions of the same reality, then every decision they make can still feel perfectly logical to them.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the famous radio transmission.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: People often quote it inaccurately.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM first officer completed the root clearance and read back endant with the phrase, we are now at takeoff.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Today, that word would almost certainly never be used.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it's grammatically wrong, because it's open to interpretation.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Did he mean we are lined up ready for takeoff or we are beginning our takeoff?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: English allows both meanings.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Modern aviation doesn't.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because modern aviation hates ambiguity.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every phrase has one meaning, one purpose, and nothing left to interpretation.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of Terrif's biggest legacies.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then came the controller's reply.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, stand by for takeoff, I will call you.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Again, perfectly understandable in everyday English, but perhaps not forceful enough when dealing with two giant aircraft hidden in fog.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Today, controllers generally use much more explicit wording.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you are not cleared, they say exactly that.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are cleared, the phrase cleared for takeoff is reserved solely for that instruction.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: No substitutes, no shortcuts, no conversational alternatives.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that change exists largely because of what happened in Tenerife.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then we arrive at the technology involved: the radio overlap.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine two people speaking into a walkie-talkie at exactly the same time.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Neither message arrives properly.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you hear fragments, or maybe a squeal, a bit of static and broken words.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what investigators believe happened.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: The town was speaking, and Pan Am transmitted almost simultaneously.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the result?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: The KLM crew almost certainly never heard the full message confirming Pan Am remained on the runway.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: That tiny overlap lasted less than two seconds and it changed history.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, this raises another question.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even if the captain missed past the transmission, why didn't the other two crew members stop him?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're entering one of aviation psychology's most fascinating subjects.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Cockpit hierarchy.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Back then, the captain was king.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Literally.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: His word carried enormous weight.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Co-pilots were expected to support.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Flight engineers martyred systems.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Questioning a senior captain, particularly one as famous as Jacob Van Danten, wasn't impossible, but culturally it was difficult.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Very difficult, in fact.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember who he was?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: He trained other captains.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: He examined pilots.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: His photograph appeared in airline publicity all over the world.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine corrected the person who taught you.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Many people simply wouldn't.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean nobody tried.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: The first officer questioned elements of the departure.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: The flight engineer asked, Is he not clear then?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Those weren't the words of men asleep at the wheel.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those were professionals sensing something wasn't right.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: But sensing isn't enough.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody needed to be absolutely certain.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody needed to say stop but nobody did.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: After Tenerife, psychologists began studying exactly why.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: One concept kept appearing.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: This thing called authority gradient.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So picture a mountain.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: At the bottom, you've got your junior staff.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: At the top, you've got your captain.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: The steeper the mountain, the harder it becomes for somebody below to climb up and challenge a decision.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Modern airlines work incredibly hard to flatten that mountain, plateau it, even.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: The first officer isn't supposed to feel like an assistant.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: They are another professional in the cockpit.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: If something feels wrong, they're expected to say so.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Repeatedly, loudly, if necessary.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: This led directly to one of the biggest revolutions in aviation, something called crew resource management, usually shortened to CRM.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Today it's taught across the world, but in 1977 it barely existed.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: CRM isn't really about flying aircraft, it's about people.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Communication, decision making, challenge, workload, leadership, listening.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is beautifully simple, but the safest cockpit isn't the one with the smartest captain.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one where everyone feels able to speak.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: That philosophy has spread far beyond aviation.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hospitals now teach versions of CRM, nuclear power stations and the military, offshore oil rigs do too.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even some emergency services.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because humans make better decisions together than they do inside rigid hierarchies.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Another lesson concerned language itself.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Before Tenerife pilots often chatted naturally over the radio.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: After Tenerife, aviation became much stricter.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Words like takeoff are now heavily protected.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: You will not hear a controller casually saying taxi into takeoff position.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, they'll use phrases such as line up and wait.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: The word takeoff isn't in there.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: That tiny word and change wasn't about grammar.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was about removing every possible misunderstanding.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Ground radar also became a major priority.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Many airports now allow controls to see aircraft moving on the ground, even in thick fog.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's called surface movement radar.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Today, controllers can often identify exactly where every aircraft sits.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Back then, they were relying on voices and hope.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: The investigators also examined Pan Am's role.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: The official report did identify contributory factors involving the Pan Am crew.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: They had not exited at the instructed taxiway.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: However, the investigators concluded this was not the fundamental cause.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they had missed a turn, but they twice advised they were still on the runway.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: One question continued to haunt investigators.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Was Captain Van Zanten thinking during those final seconds?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll never really know.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't survive.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: But psychology offers some clues.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Once people commit to a course of action, they tend to interpret new information in ways that support that decision.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's called confirmation bias.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the phrase before.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you believe the runway is clear, your brain naturally explains away anything suggesting otherwise.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the strange things about disasters like this is that eventually the headlines stop.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: The television cameras leave, the newspapers move on, the wreckage is cleared, the runway reopens, and the place where hundreds of people died quietly returns to being a busy airport.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Aircraft landed at Los Rodez Airport again.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Passengers queued for coffee, families went on holiday.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Children looked excitedly out of the windows as jets tactied past.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Life has a remarkable habit of carrying on, doesn't it?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: But for thousands of people, it never really did.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: All those families of those who lost their lives and those who survived, their lives would never be the same again.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this a couple of times, but I'll say it again.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: The official death toll settled at 583.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big number.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that number has never been surpassed in a single commercial aviation accident.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: It remains the deadliest accident involving passenger airliners.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: When people hear that figure, it's difficult to process.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: 583 is just a number until you imagine them all standing together.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a small village, a secondary school, an entire theatre audience gone in seconds.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the survivors carried something much harder than physical injuries.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Many later described overwhelming survivors' guilt.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can imagine it would be horrific.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why had they escaped when the person sitting next to them hadn't?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why had they chosen that particular seat?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why had they climbed through one gap to safety instead of another, leading to deadly burning fuel?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Some replayed those final moments for years and years.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Others hardly spoke about Tenerife ever again.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: We all deal with tragedy in different ways, don't we?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Pan Am crew also lived with the consequences.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Victor Grubbs, first officer Robert Bragg, and flight engineer George Warnes had done almost everything humanly possible once they saw the KLM aircraft.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: By the time they spotted it, they had only a handful of seconds to react.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Accelerating, turning, trying desperately to escape.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was no manoeuvre that could realistically guarantee survival.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, like so many professionals involved in catastrophic events, they still spent years wondering whether something else might have saved a few more people.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a burden no investigation can remove.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Netherlands entered a period of national mourning.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: KLM was and still is the flag carrier of the country.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Captain Jacob Veldhuizen van Zanten had been one of its most respected figures.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: The airline accepted the findings of the investigation, but understandably the conclusions were painful.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: The captain's reputation had been built over decades, and his final decision became one of the most studied mistakes in aviation history.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth remembering that he didn't survive to explain what he believed was happening.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: History judged his actions from the evidence left behind, not from his own words.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: For Panam, the disaster arrived during a difficult period in the airline's history.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout the following decade, the once iconic carrier struggled financially.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tenerife wasn't the cause of Panam's eventual collapse in 1991, but it became one more tragedy associated with a company that had once symbolised the glamour of international travel.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Today, Panam World Airways survives largely in photographs, documentaries, and aviation museums.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: For many younger listeners, it's simply another name from history.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yet there was a time when flying Panam represented the very height of luxury.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: So did Tan Reef make flying easier?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Without question.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Commercial aviation has an unusual relationship with tragedy.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every major accident leaves behind lessons.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Modern pilots now train extensively in crew resource management.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not just once, but throughout their careers.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: First officers are expected to challenge, and captains are expected to listen.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody spots a problem, rank becomes almost irrelevant.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Safety comes first.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds obvious, but it wasn't always.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Aviation language became dramatically more standardized and technology moved forward.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the culture.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps Therese's greatest legacy isn't technical at all, it's psychological.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: The accident taught industries around the world that experience alone doesn't guarantee safety.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, experience can sometimes become part of the problem, and certainty discourages questions.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, a number of myths have attached themselves to Tenerife.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: One claims the KLM captain was racing to beat legal duty hours and feared being stranded overnight.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: As we've mentioned, the evidence doesn't support such a simple conclusion.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Duty time almost certainly added pressure, but the official investigation did not identify us as the direct cause of his decision to begin the take-off role.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Another myth suggests the Pan Am crew were hopelessly lost.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not really.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: They knew roughly where they were.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty was identifying the correct exit in rapidly deteriorating visibility on an unfamiliar airfield with awkwardly angled taxiways.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's very different from simply not knowing where they were.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the saddest myth is the idea that disasters like this require one villain.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings seem to crave that, don't they?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: One bad person, one reckless act, one obvious explanation.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tenerife doesn't give us that easy answer.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it gives us something much more complicated.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever aviation experts discuss Tenerife, they often finish with the same thoughts.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: The accident wasn't caused by one giant mistake, it was caused by dozens of small ones.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: That idea has become known as the Swiss cheese model, developed later by psychologist James Reason.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine layers of Swiss cheese lined up.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Every layer is a safety barrier, but each has holes.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: Normally the holes don't line up.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: But on the 27th of March 1977, they did.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: The airport was overcrowded, the taxiways were blocked, the weather deteriorated, visibility disappeared, the runway became a taxiway.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Radio transmissions overlapped.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Language was ambiguous.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hierarchy discouraged challenge.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: One assumption went uncorrected.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: When the investigators finished the work, they didn't simply produce a report about an accident.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: They produced a blueprint for safer aviation.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Millions upon millions of people have flown since March 1977.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every one of them has unknowingly benefited from lessons written in the aftermath of those 13 seconds on a foggy runway in Tenerife.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: If the darkness stays with you, good.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: It means you are paying attention.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be waiting right here in the dark for the next case, the next secret, the next piece of the broken human mind.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, take those meds.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be my next topic.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a hinged.