Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster

The world's worst air disaster happened more than forty years ago on a remote Atlantic Ocean island, when two fully loaded 747 passenger jets collided after a horrendous series of human errors.



One of the jets, KLM Flight 4805, was traveling more than 150 miles an hour and was within seconds of lifting off when it crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 taxiing in its path. The loss of lives was staggering-583 dead. The crash happened after a lengthy series of major and minor human errors. In the in...