A few days after the 44th anniversary of the biggest air disaster of history, when two Boeing 747 aircraft collided in the Los Rodeos airport leaving almost 600 fatalities -only 61 people survived-, it is evident that air safety has known how to identify the causes and modify the operating procedures in order to avoid its repetition. But that was just one of the aerial tragedies of Los Rodeos.
That March 27, 1977 of intense fog has left an indelible mark on the memory of the people of Tenerife, but not the only one. In a period of just 20 years, there were 7 plane crashes that claimed almost a thousand lives -950, in total- at the Tenerife North aerodrome.
March 17, 1964: A Douglas DC-3 military plane, belonging to the Spanish Air Force, crashed in the vicinity of La Esperanza while trying to land at Los Rodeos at dawn. Six passengers, among the 16 that made up the passage, died on the spot or shortly after the impact.
May 5, 1965: The first Lockheed L-1049G aircraft Super Constellation de Iberia, baptized with the name of Santa María, crashed when it was on final approach after the fog began to expand on the runway and nullified visibility. The subsequent investigation determined that the commander should have diverted to the Gran Canaria airport. Between crew members and passengers, a total of 32 people died. “The Super constellation of Madrid was split in two”, published the next day in its DIARIO DE AVISOS edition.
December 7, 1965: Just a few months later, that same year, another plane crash occurred in the vicinity of the Tenerife airfield. Specifically, an aircraft spantax -Spanish airline that operated at that time- crashed shortly after taking off in the lagoon neighborhood of El Ortigal and its 28 occupants lost their lives.
December 3, 1972: Spantax flight 275, which was on the route between Tenerife and the German city of Munich, suffered an explosion a few seconds after taking off from Los Rodeos, killing all 155 people on board. The post-crash investigation determined that the aircraft had lost control due to poor weather conditions and zero visibility on the runway.
March 27, 1977: Two Boeing 747 planes collided at Los Rodeos airport and 583 people lost their lives. More than four decades later, it remains the deadliest accident in commercial aviation history. The events occurred when a terrorist attack forced the closure of the Gando airport (Gran Canaria) and both aircraft involved, which were scheduled to land on its runway, were diverted to the -at that time- the only airport in Tenerife. Two days ago marked the 44th anniversary of a tragedy that the Island will never forget.
February 15, 1978: A Sabena Boeing 707, Belgian airlines, was about to land at the Tenerife airfield with its landing gear completely broken. The plane had 189 passengers and seven crew members on board and, despite awkward landingin which the nose of the aircraft hit the runway in Tenerife, the emergency services of the plane itself and the airport “worked perfectly” and, fortunately, there were no fatalities.
April 25, 1980: The flight of a Boeing 727 of the British company Dan Air was making the flight between Manchester and Tenerife fell about 20 kilometers from Los Rodeos airport during the approach to land. All 146 occupants of the ship died. This past summer, a hiker found remains of the crashed plane on the mountain of El Diablillo, where the accident occurred.
