Top 10 deadliest airline disasters

Updated: 2014-03-14 08:05 By Sun Chengdong (chinadaily.com.cn)

No.1 Tenerife airport disaster Year:1977

Fatalities: 583 Survivors: 61

The deadliest crash, like a perfect storm, was the combination of several rare events and it stands as proof that a great number of things usually have to go wrong before a disaster can occur. After a terrorist bombing at Gran Canaria (Las Palmas) International Airport, five large aircraft and a number of small aircraft that had been scheduled to stop there were diverted to the Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife. Los Rodeos was a much smaller airport, with one runway with a parallel taxiway and four exits between them. Planes usually taxied up the taxiway, then turned onto the runway and took off. In these extremely cramped conditions however, the parked aircraft took up a significant amount of the taxiway, meaning that a plane had to taxi up the runway and then somehow turn around to take off.

When Gran Canaria reopened, the parked aircraft blocking the taxiway at Tenerife required both of the 747s to taxi on the only runway in order to get in position for takeoff. The fog was so thick that neither aircraft could see the other, nor could the controller in the tower see the runway or the two 747s on it. As the airport did not have ground radar, the only means for the controller to identify the location of each airplane was via voice reports over the radio. As a result of several misunderstandings in the ensuing communication, the KLM flight attempted to take off while the Pan Am flight was still on the runway. The resulting collision destroyed both aircraft, killing all 248 aboard the KLM flight and 335 of 396 aboard the Pan Am flight. Sixty-one people aboard the Pan Am flight, including the pilots and flight engineer, survived the disaster.