Crash in the Canary Islands

摘要

THE BOOK Jon Ziomek has written a riveting account of the errors that unfolded before the worst civil aviation disaster in history, when on March 27,1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets-KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736-collided on a runway at Tenerife island, killing 583 people. "Many years ago, I met Caroline and Warren Hopkins, two of the crash survivors, who lived near me in suburban Chicago. Although Caroline had written a diary of their experiences as passengers on the Pan Am 747, they wanted the help of a professional writer in getting their story told publicly." A CHAT WITH J0N ZIOMEK This accident seemed so preventable. What was the critical turning point? The Spanish government, which governs the Canary Islands, took more than a year before issuing its final report. There were several contributing factors-for example, confusion on the part of both 747 flight crews in understanding taxiing instructions from the air traffic controllers-but a key reason was that the captain of the KLM jet did not have control-tower clearance when he began his takeoff roll. No one in the control tower or the Pan Am cockpit knew this because the runway was obscured by fog, and the airport at Tenerife didn't have ground radar.