Francisco Sicilia is currently 76 years old. He was born in Ceuta and lived a typical childhood of a soldier’s son, with changes of address to the beat of his father’s destinies: he lived in what is now an autonomous city for six years, later he moved with his family to Alicante, he was there another two years and , then he settled in Tenerife, where he has spent the rest of his life. He has been known above all for his association with the world of handball and Club Tres de Mayo, of which he was a player and president during the team’s glory years.
It so happens that in the memory drawers of this sportsman, among memorable matches and other feats for history, the Los Rodeos air disaster occupies a prominent place. At the time he was 31 years old and working as a flight coordinator. He experienced it all in the first person. So much so that he interacted with the pilot of the Boeing 747 of the Pan American company (Pan Am) before the accident occurred; he transferred four passengers to the other aircraft, also a KLM jumbo; he was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident, and collaborated in the subsequent emergency operation.
What was your role at the airport at the time?
He was a flight coordinator. When a plane arrived, it was automatically at your disposal. The staff came down and you made sure that the cleaning was quick, the catering was set up, you told the mechanics the fuel and you told the commander the number of passengers, the luggage… You brought him what is called a load sheet and centered, in which the pilot sees all the data. So, he signed it, he kept one copy and you kept another, with which he agreed to everything that had happened. There were two or three coordinators who were on the tarmac and there was another one in the hangar, the final coordinator, who kept telling you: “This plane is coming”, “Go to this one”, “Go to the other one”…
How do you remember that fateful day before the accident occurred?
It was a beautiful day, a tremendous sunny day. What is true is that many planes accumulated because the Gran Canaria airport was closed due to a bomb warning. Before five in the afternoon, when we dispatched the planes, it was a sunny day and at ten past five there was a fog that you couldn’t see your hand, as usually happens at Los Rodeos airport, although now it happens much less.
You were commissioned to coordinate one of the damaged planes, right?
I had to coordinate the Pan American flight. And another colleague, Roberto Álvarez de la Rosa, from KLM.
He detected that four people were missing…
The KLM commander wanted to leave quickly. Roberto told him: «Commander, there are four passengers missing…». And he: «No; I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” The father, the mother and the two kids were shopping at a tobacconist. We picked them up and took them running. “Commander, they are already.” You weren’t going to leave four people on the ground and you didn’t know anything was going to happen. We did it because we were worried they wouldn’t be able to travel, and they thanked us and everything.
And what happened next?
When you dispatched a plane, you signed the sheet and left. And I entered the hangar. There was a soccer game that day. Then, the final coordinator said that we had to get closer because there was a small fire. I went out with the car, I didn’t see anything, nothing, nothing… You could see so little that I was guided by the yellow line that was across the track. Arriving there was when I saw that.
There are those who say that there was practically no noise and those who maintain that a great noise was heard. What did you perceive?
There are people who, as in all this, have their stories. The next day or two, someone appeared in a magazine saying, “I saw the explosion!” But there was not a pepper to be seen. Yes, it is true that the windows were heard and trembled, and a noise like plufff! But that happened many times when a plane took off and the turbine or something made noise. What it was not is something that could be seen in the air due to the fog.
He went to the area thinking it was a small fire and yet he found something else…
Sometimes, when the ladder was put on airplanes, they raised the wheel a little with a jack and, if you left the jack underneath, forgotten, the wheel, if it was rubbing against the platform, would catch fire. We thought that was it. When I arrived and saw that it was an incredible thing. On the Pan American plane, which had no stairs or anything, people jumped.
And the KLM plane?
Look how it was that I was seeing the Pan American plane but not the KLM one. And when there was a moment, after five minutes or something like that, when there was a bit of a breeze and the fog dispersed a little, that was when I saw the KLM plane burning, and I reported it to the final coordinator. He didn’t believe it. First I told him about the Pan Am and then I told him: “The KLM is a ball of fire.” The Pan American was something else, with people starting to jump. In fact, the commander disappeared and returned hours later. The man had gone to La Esperanza disoriented and, when he saw the beacons, he returned to the airport at ten or eleven at night.
And where was he during all those hours? Stunned by the surroundings?
Of course. There were also people who jumped and ran to one side, to the other…
And what did you do from that moment?
I informed the final coordinator, he automatically notified the fire department and everyone who had to be mobilized was mobilized. They even opened the doors and taxis entered the track to help the wounded.
From there, did you continue to work for the next few hours?
I stayed until eleven at night more or less. Then I left and came back the next day in the morning. A lot of journalists came from Madrid and they wanted me to go to a room to explain what I saw. I called the Escala boss to see if he could talk to them and then I was telling them.
What was your work from the crash until 11:00 p.m.?
Directing the firemen, helping, telling a taxi to go further or closer, and directing the people who were jumping and guiding them where they had to go.
Was there anything that impressed you more than what you saw during that afternoon?
One thing I will never explain to myself is that, when I got to the Pan American plane, there was the second on board, the mechanic and a representative who was traveling with them standing on the ground, despite the height of the plane, looking up. And I asked them: «What are you doing here?». And they didn’t know how they were there. Note that the KLM plane, with the landing gear, made a hole in the Pan American plane, and that hole is where people jumped. I arrived perhaps five or six minutes after that had happened, perhaps less, in what it took me to move from the hangar. And they were standing looking at the plane. Surely they jumped but they neither remembered nor knew because of the shock they had.
So you were the first to arrive? Until then, were the crashed planes only on the runway in the middle of the fog?
Yes. I was there for almost ten minutes alone, until the firemen arrived. Later, another now-deceased comrade also joined, Óscar Rodríguez, who collaborated a great deal with the wounded and with everything. He, at that time, was finishing ATS.
Did you have nightmares after that?
No. That day I was realizing what had happened, but I was in what I was and with the tension of the moment. And then, at eleven o’clock at night, I broke down. I think that helps you. I have never dreamed of that. I don’t even remember the face of that couple and the children we took to the plane. And Roberto tells me the same thing.
At that time, how many years had you been working at the airport?
I was 31 years old at that time. I had gone to England when I was 19, I came, I did my military service and I started to work. That happened in 1977 and I had entered Iberia in 1969.
But you worked in the Iberia company?
Of course! The only ones who coordinated all the flights were those of the flag company; there were no other coordinators than those of Iberia. The others were representatives. There was always a representative from an English or French company, whatever…, and he would tell you: “Hey, look, I’ll take care of the plane.” In those cases they took care of it, but you gave them the data.
With what you saw, your experience there, what you have heard and what you have been able to read, what happened that day?
The KLM commander was reckless for the simple reason that he started a takeoff run blindly, because there was tremendous fog. If the fog hadn’t been there, he would have seen there was a plane in the intersection and wouldn’t have gotten out. He started the race and ended up taking off when he found the Pan American plane, he tried to get on and collided with the landing gear with the other jumbo jet, which was on the ground. It was in the air, fell and exploded. That was what happened in general terms.
