On Pan Am flight 1736, where fire was also the primary killer, loss of life was even heavier. She was therefore not on the KLM plane when the accident happened, and would be the only survivor of those who flew from Amsterdam to Tenerife on Flight 4805. Statements issued by the Fuerzas Armadas Guanches, whose crude bomb had set the whole sequence of events in motion, expressed genuine horror at the scale of the accident and denied that they had intended to cause such destruction, although this was later undermined by the groups leader, who reported from exile in Algeria that the deceased tourists should never have come to the islands during a time of armed struggle.. He was also the president and co-founder of the European Flight Engineers Organization, a major international trade union. [4] The Pan Am crew indicated that they would prefer to circle in a holding pattern until landing clearance was given (they had enough fuel to safely stay in the air for two more hours), but they were ordered to divert to Tenerife. Video, 00:02:00. The Pan Am plane was ready to depart from Tenerife, but access to the runway was obstructed by the KLM plane and a refueling vehicle; the KLM captain had decided to fully refuel at Los Rodeos instead of Las Palmas, apparently to save time. On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport), on the Spanish island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, killing 583 people, making it the deadliest accident in aviation history. Video, 00:04:17Why did 918 people die because of this man? Expecting a long delay, the KLM crew allowed their 235 passengers to disembark into the terminal, where they were given special ID cards so they could be found again at the end of the layover. Clouds at 600m (2,000ft) above ground level at the nearby coast are at ground level at Los Rodeos. [40][41], Spanish Army soldiers were tasked with clearing crash wreckage from the runways and taxiways. The crash was known as the Quincy runway disaster. The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport[1] (now Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Pressens Bild. -Eyeshadow: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1344j/-Eyeliner: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1103c/-Lashes: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1103f/-Blush: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1103i/-Brow Gel: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1103l/-Foundation: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztrl/-Highlighter: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztro/-Mascara: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztrs/-Lips: https://go.magik.ly/ml/1103j/-Tiny curling Iron: https://amzn.to/3mfh17RYoutube Essentials I use: -Camera: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztqw/-Lights: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztqx/-Hard drive (used to create longer videos): https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztr6/-Microphone: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztr8/-Tri-pod: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztra/-\r128GB Memory Card (NEED for longer vids): https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztrb/-Wireless remote for camera: https://go.magik.ly/ml/ztrd/*Affiliate links above help support this channel and cost you nothing :) SOURCES: https://www.magellantv.com/video/airline-disaster-crash-of-the-century-https://confessionsofatrolleydolly.com/2017/03/26/angels-of-the-sky-dorothy-kelly-the-tenerife-disaster/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJkLrLwmV0Yhttps://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20181001/mama-im-alive-incredible-story-of-survivalhttps://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-35695521https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/01/woman-who-survived-worst-plane-crash-ever-saw-passenger-sliced-in-half-by-seatbelt-7995452/https://peterstenerifecrashpage.wordpress.comhttps://www.historynet.com/disaster-on-tenerife-historys-worst-airline-accident.htm#solved #survived #sponsored Later analysis would show that a Boeing 747 could not make the second turn because the taxiways were too narrow. Two simultaneous warnings that could have revealed his mistake cancelled each other out, causing him to hear neither. The Dutch flight duty time laws were only part of a broader trend, spurred by pressure from a public with no understanding of aviation safety, to criminalize errors and violations that should be handled internally by an airline. [10], The following day, the Canary Islands Independence Movement, responsible for the bombing at Gran Canaria that started the chain of events that led to the disaster, denied responsibility for the accident. First Officer Meurs started to read back the clearance. On the KLM, the Pan Am 747 also appeared suddenly through the fog, its white bulk looming dead ahead. The death toll would ultimately be pinned at 583, but in the chaotic days after the disaster, reported numbers ranged from 530 to more than 600 as authorities struggled to reconcile the vast number of missing people with the sea of remains laid out in the hangar at Los Rodeos. Early on the afternoon of March 27th, the Fuerzas Aramadas Guanches detonated an improvised bomb inside a florists shop inside the terminal at Gran Canaria Airport, wounding the shopkeeper. Go ahead, ask." It was the first 747 to be delivered to an airline. There were 61 survivors on the Pan Am aircraft, including the flight deck crew. UK weather forecast: Will it snow in your area? Who was to blame? Video, 00:01:09, As far as pranks go it was a good one - Gary Lineker, WATCH: Prince William reveals who's the better cook at home. The controller's response of "OK" to the co-pilot's nonstandard statement that they were "now at takeoff" was likely due to his misinterpretation that they were in takeoff position and ready to begin the roll when takeoff clearance was received, but not in the process of taking off. Veldhuyzen van Zanten emphatically replied "Oh, yes" and continued with the takeoff. Next one is almost a forty-five, but huh, yeah., But it goes yeah, but it goes ahead, I think its gonna put us on the taxiway., Maybe he maybe he counts these [as] three.. What does Andrew Tate promise his followers? Video, 00:01:04One-minute World News. The only significant change was the construction of a new airport on the dry side of Tenerife, which was already planned before the accident. Travel infrastructure in the archipelago was more suited to the reality of the 1960s, when the number of tourists had been ten times less, and the system frequently broke down under the strain. Her bravery, heroism, courage and skills saved the lives of countless passengers. [4] About 70 personnel were involved in the investigation, including representatives from the United States, the Netherlands[44] and the two airline companies. + Develops implements and monitors recovery plans with disaster survivors and their families to return at a minimum to pre-disaster level of well-being. The most direct changes were to radio communications, where the crash prompted increased standardization of terminology around the world. Watch 40 years of the funniest Breakfast fails. Because they were broadcasting, not receiving, neither the Pan Am crew nor the controller were aware of the resulting interference. The impact and resulting fire killed everyone on board KLM 4805 and most of the occupants of Pan Am 1736, with only 61 survivors in the front section of the aircraft. Both airplanes were destroyed in the collision. Deaths. The KLM crew, hearing distorted voices underneath a shrill squeal, probably thought that an irrelevant transmission had slipped through from a different frequency and made no attempt to clarify its contents. In anticipation of further arrivals, the controllers instructed it to park down at the end of the main taxiway where it intersected runway 12. The crash also spurred the more widespread installation of taxiway markings, which were sometimes lacking at small airports in 1977 but are standard at every airport today. [30], A simultaneous radio call from the Pan Am crew caused mutual interference on the radio frequency, which was audible in the KLM cockpit as a three-second-long shrill sound (or heterodyne). Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten, a KLM training captain and instructor for over ten years working on simulators regularly, had not flown on regular routes during the twelve weeks prior to the accident. [8] Its cockpit crew consisted of Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten (age 50),[9] First Officer Klaas Meurs (42), and Flight Engineer Willem Schreuder (48). Meurs then radioed the tower that they were "ready for takeoff" and "waiting for our ATC clearance". The crowded airport had placed additional pressure on all parties, including the KLM cockpit crew, the Pan Am cockpit crew, and the controller; Sounds on the CVR suggested that during the accident the Spanish control tower crew had been listening to a. However, the message possessed sufficient ambiguity to unnerve him, and he decided to add additional clarification. The collision between two Boeing 747s, belonging to KLM and Pan Am, resulted in the deaths of 583 passengers and crew. The Story Of The Tenerife Airport Disaster. The new crew consisted of Captain Victor Grubbs (age 56), First Officer Robert Bragg (39), Flight Engineer George Warns (46) and 13 flight attendants. Go ahead, ask.. Why did 918 people die because of this man? The islands have been home to the indigenous Guanches since the first millennium B.C., and even after 500 years of colonization some of their descendants have not forgotten the atrocities committed against their community. Analysis of the CVR transcript showed that the KLM pilot thought that he had been cleared for takeoff, while the Tenerife control tower believed that the KLM 747 was stationary at the end of the runway, awaiting takeoff clearance. Video, 00:01:09As far as pranks go it was a good one - Gary Lineker, WATCH: Prince William reveals who's the better cook at home. As investigators from Spain, the Netherlands, and the United States converged on the island of Tenerife, they faced the aviation industrys greatest nightmare made manifest: the fatal collision of two heavily loaded jumbo jets. Unintended consequences propagated outward from every decision, affecting the course of events in unexpected ways. Aviation authorities around the world introduced requirements for standard phrases and a greater emphasis on English as a common working language. If they had been paying close attention the pilots probably could have understood what was said, but such concentration is not normally needed and in this case was not applied. [21], The angle of the third taxiway would have required the plane to perform a 148 turn, which would lead back toward the still-crowded main apron. With. Captain van Zanten had to give the maneuver his utmost concentration, because the 747 requires 42 meters to turn around, and the runway was only 46 meters wide. Near the front, however, passengers managed to escape via several avenues. [24], The Pan Am crew found themselves in poor and rapidly deteriorating visibility almost as soon as they entered the runway. Read about our approach to external linking. Throughout the afternoon, the weather at Los Rodeos continuously deteriorated. 177. This meant that they would have to taxi down to the far end of the runway before turning around, a process which was rapidly increasing in complexity due to shrinking visibility and the large number of planes still parked on the various taxiways. In 1975, around two million tourists visited the Canaries, but at that time it could not have been said that the islands were a major travel hub. In the end, the KLM cabin crew never managed to corral all 235 passengers. Moments later, the fuel in the right wing ignited, and an even bigger explosion tore through the plane from end to end, sending the remains of its twisted fuselage toppling inward into a fiery void. Hundreds of people were rushed to safety as bomb detection squads moved in to scour the premises for further explosive devices. The controller was also struggling to figure out how best to handle the massive 747s. versttning med sammanhang av "Tenerife, one" i engelska-svenska frn Reverso Context: Located on the Spanish island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the joint capital of the Canary Islands, along with Las Palmas. Later reports would come to contradictory conclusions about whether this was necessary. Alexander was a passenger on Pan Am flight 1477, one of two Boeing 747 jumbo jets that collided on the island of Tenerife in March 1977, killing more than 583 . The crash was caused by many reasons. The effect of so much imprecise language was that all involved parties could find ways to interpret the others statements in a manner which reinforced their pre-existing expectations. When the controller said Leave the runway third one your left [sic], the pilots spent the next two minutes trying to figure out whether he said first or third., Meanwhile, the controller asked the KLM crew, KLM four eight zero five, how many taxiways did you pass?. However, contrary to popular belief, the Dutch investigators concluded that this likely had no effect on the sequence of events and chose not to place any blame on the controller or the Pan Am crew. The disaster had just 61 survivors, all of whom had been onboard the Pan Am 747. From the people who made punctuality possible", "San Jose Inside Dutch Hamann Part 2", "Canary Island Separatist Says Group Planted Bomb But Did Not Cause Crash", "Experts converge on Canaries to probe plane crash", "Desert Sun 29 March 1977 California Digital Newspaper Collection", "30 Mar 1977, Page 4 - The Naples Daily News", "The Deadliest Plane Crash - The Final Eight Minutes", "B742 / B741, Tenerife Canary Islands Spain, 1977 - SKYbrary Aviation Safety", "Final report and comments of the Netherlands Aviation Safety Board", "The Vulnerable System: An Analysis of the Tenerife Air Disaster", "CIAIAC | Publications | Relevant reports | A-102/1977 and A-103/1977 2.1 Analysis", "World's deadliest airline disaster occurred 36 years ago today", "Tenerife Disaster 27 March 1977: The Utility of the Swiss Cheese Model & other Accident Causation Frameworks", "The Evolution of Crew Resource Management Training in Commercial Aviation", "Tenerife North airport will get a new control tower, more than 30 years after world's biggest air disaster", "Around the Ranch: All about Battle Mountain", "Rancho Bernardo cross undergoes repairs", "COMUNICADO: Monumento International Tenerife Memorial donado al Cabildo; avanzan los trabajos de cimentacin en la Mesa Mota", "Monumento Conmemorativo Internacional March 2, 2007 + Foto-Video", Survivor remembers deadliest aviation disaster in Tenerife, Official Spanish and Dutch accident reports, English translation of Spanish report and Dutch response, A-102/1977 y A-103/1977 Accidente Ocurrido el 27 de Marzo de 1977 a las Aeronaves Boeing 747, Matrcula PH-BUF de K.L.M. This page was last edited on 17 January 2023, at 06:57. Less experienced flight crew members were encouraged to challenge their captains when they believed something to be incorrect, and captains were instructed to listen to their crew and evaluate all decisions in light of crew concerns. This steep authority gradient would have been reinforced by the fact that van Zanten had recently given Meurs his Boeing 747 type rating, and by the fact that Shreuder was apparently a proponent of a limited role for flight engineers, believing that they should stick to aircraft systems and not involve themselves in operational decision-making. At the time of the accident, Grubbs had 21,043 hours of flight time, of which 564 hours were on the 747. Until that point, aircrew and controllers should use the word "departure" in its place (e.g., "ready for departure"). . They also faced a crash scene which could only be described as apocalyptic. Oh shit, Captain van Zanten exclaimed, pulling the control column back as far as it would go in a desperate attempt to lift off. From the KLMs cockpit voice recording, it was evident that Captain van Zanten was not closely following the conversations between First Officer Meurs and air traffic control during taxi and takeoff; in fact, he had to ask repeatedly for clarification. [4] By the time the KLM pilots saw the Pan Am aircraft, they were already moving too fast to stop. Get off! Get off!" The airport was forced to accommodate a great number of large aircraft due to rerouting from the terrorist incident resulting in disruption of the normal use of taxiways. Flying in a nose high position with its tail about two meters off the ground, KLM flight 4805 slammed broadside into Pan Am flight 1736 at a speed of 260 kilometers per hour. Possible penalties ranged from loss of license to outright imprisonment. The crew began the taxi and proceeded to identify the unmarked taxiways using an airport diagram as they reached them. In addition to the use of the word takeoff in an ATC clearance and the unexpected use of the callsign Papa Alpha instead of Clipper, statements such as we are now at takeoff, well report when were clear, and okay contributed to repeated misunderstandings that led directly to the crash. Prior to the accident, he hadnt flown a regular line flight for twelve weeks. Instead, the controller only granted the ATC clearance. Thus the controllers instruction to wait for takeoff clearance, and the Pan Am First Officers position report, both passed unnoticed by precisely those people who most needed to hear them. . In the case of the Tenerife disaster, this manifested in the form of self-doubt that prevented the First Officer and Flight Engineer from fully exploring or articulating their own concerns, laboring under a mistaken assumption that the Captain had a better understanding of the situation than they did. Engines, pieces of fuselage, and burning jet fuel flew in every direction. How could van Zanten, of all people, commit such a basic error? The Pan Am pilots, also unsettled by the situation, decided to make their position clear as well, and interpreted the pause after Okay as an opportunity to do so. Immediately after lining up, the KLM captain advanced the throttles and the aircraft started to move forward. In what can only be considered a horrible coincidence, the simultaneous transmissions on the same frequency caused interference which manifested in the KLM cockpit as a loud squeal, partially drowning out the words underneath. All around them, explosions burst forth in every direction; fire surged in through the shattered windows and up through the riven floor. The first crash investigators to arrive at Tenerife the day after the crash travelled there by way of a three-hour boat ride from Las Palmas. The co-pilot who survived the Tenerife aircraft disaster, The worst crash in aviation history. Radar could have prevented that crash too, but despite recommendations to do so following Tenerife, none had been installed. The C-130 transport was arranged by Lt. Col Dr. James K. Slaton, who arrived before the crash investigators and started triaging surviving passengers. The Pan Am crew replied: "OK, will report when we're clear." At that moment, Captain van Zanten began to move the throttle levers forward, but First Officer Meurs said, Wait a minute, we do not have an ATC clearance., Van Zanten pulled the throttles back to idle again. 150 meters on, it crashed to the ground and broke into three pieces. Yeah, hes anxious isnt he, said First Officer Bragg. And fourth, the crash would not have been possible without the severe lack of infrastructure at Los Rodeos airport. There were not enough controllers to deal with the increased traffic, and they did not have enough experience to appropriately handle Boeing 747s. Adclickersbot is a Telegram earning platform that allows you to earn money by performing simple tasks. Schreuder had 17,031 flight hours, of which 543 hours were on the 747. The controller thought he meant they were at the takeoff position, but he seemed to have a moment of doubt. The Tenerife Disaster is also frequently cited as the progenitor of crew resource management, or CRM, the now-universal set of strategies intended to ensure open communication and optimal task distribution in airline cockpits. Get MagellanTV here: https://try.magellantv.com/brookemakenna & get an exclusive offer extended to my viewers: an extra month FREE. The four engines, landing gear, and rear fuselage tore through the right side of the Pan Am jet in a dozen places simultaneously. The way the KLM plane was parked prevented the Pan Am jet from taxiing past, even though they were ready to leave much earlier. The big town on Tenerife is Santa Cruz, and its airport, beneath a set of cascading hillsides, is called Los Rodeos. Thats what we need, right? said Captain Grubbs. Passengers and crew from the Pan Am aircraft escaped onto the intact left wing and jumped to the ground. Having no good reason to believe that the KLM would take off without clearance, he considered Meurss transmission to mean that they had assumed the takeoff position. The airport was not unaccustomed to international traffic, but it usually served smaller jets operating for private low-cost and holiday-focused airlines from Europe, and generally in small numbers. The crash also would have been avoided if the gap next to the KLM 747 was four meters wider, or if the controller and the Pan Am crew had not picked up their microphones to broadcast warnings at exactly the same time. The third one sir, one two three, third, third one, the controller replied. Hierarchical relations among crew members were played down, and greater emphasis was placed on team decision-making by mutual agreement. The controller, for his part, interpreted the situation rather differently. They immediately set about fighting the fire, but hope for survivors appeared dim. "I was one of the people who survived," Joani said. These two stress-related phenomena combined to ensure that when Captain van Zanten heard the controller use the word takeoff, he became completely convinced that he had been cleared to start rolling. Video, 00:02:00What does Andrew Tate promise his followers? On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s collided on the runway at Tenerife Airport in the Canary Islands. This would have increased his reliance on certain key words to draw his attention to the contents of ATC communications, which he would otherwise tune out. In the control tower, the dense fog obscured the controllers view of the wreckage and fire, but the sound of two explosions was unmistakable. The Pan Am crew appeared to remain unsure of their position on the runway until the collision, which occurred near the intersection with the fourth taxiway (C-4). Believe it or not, the 27th of March, 1977 began as a normal day. Join the discussion of this article on Reddit! Although the group never directly killed anyone during its brief history, it would become most famous for setting in motion an unanticipated chain of events that went far beyond their modest terroristic ambitions. The crash of two Boeing 747s at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) in 1977 was the deadliest in history. Second Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIo2X26Eb8TT82-kUXb3owgPatreon: (Paused for December): https://www.patreon.com/brookemakennaDonations for this channel: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/brookemakenna Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/brookemakenna_Email for Business Inquires: authorbrookemakenna@gmail.comShop My Vintage Closet on Depop @nowrongera What I'm Wearing: -Dress: Vintage! He recounts the worst aviation disaster in history with his first hand experience as a survivor of the Canary Island disaster where the initial death toll included 544 people with only 75 initial survivors. In some accidents it can be said that the resulting changes ensured that the victims did not die in vain. The world wanted to know, but there would be no simple answers. One of the inbound passengers, Robina van Lanschot, who lived on the island with her boyfriend, chose not to re-board the 747, leaving 234 passengers on board.[10][11]. A string of seven volcanic summits rising from the Atlantic, the Canaries have been a part of metropolitan Spain since the fifteenth century. The KLM crewmembers were worried about compliance with draconian duty time laws, worsening weather, and mounting delays; and van Zanten even expressed concern that his wife would worry about him if she heard about the bomb explosion on the evening news. The tower instructed the KLM plane to taxi down the entire length of the runway and then make a 180 turn to get into takeoff position. Van Zanten expected to face long lines at the pump in Gran Canaria as diverted planes streamed back to the airport, potentially delaying their departure; therefore it made more sense to fuel up at Tenerife. Both crews were acutely aware that if the visibility dropped below the minimums for takeoff, they would be stuck on Tenerife overnight. However, the truth is not nearly so clear-cut. The apparent hesitation of the flight engineer and the first officer to challenge Veldhuyzen van Zanten further. He said Okay, then paused, as though trying to formulate a directive which would cover all contingencies. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Ad by Adclickersbot Make Money Easy And Safe Way. The tail slammed into the runway in a shower of sparks as the fully laden 747, its engines straining, fought heroically to become airborne. On board the Pan Am plane, agitation grew as flight attendants struggled to attend to the passengers, who had mostly embarked at Los Angeles the previous evening and had by now consumed every ounce of food and drink aboard the 747. The worst crash in aviation history. Now, after several confusing exchanges, Pan Am First Officer Bragg finally asked, Would you confirm that you want the Clipper one seven three six to turn left at the THIRD intersection?. CRM training has been mandatory for all airline pilots since 2006.[62][63]. By half past 14:00, the number of planes had become so large that the queue spilled all the way across the parking apron and into parts of the main taxiway. Warns had 15,210 flight hours, of which 559 hours were on the 747. Considering that a 747 could not negotiate the third taxiway, the crew considered whether the controller started counting up to three from the position they were in when the message was sent, by which time they had already passed the first one. For other crashes, see, Wreckage of the KLM aircraft on the runway at Los Rodeos, Aviation accidents and incidents in Spain, (now Tenerife North Ciudad de La Laguna Airport), CAP 413 Radio Telephony Manual (Edition 15), chapter 2 page 6, CAP 413 Radio Telephony Manual (Edition 15), chapter 4, page 6, paragraph 1.7.10, Comisin de Investigacin de Accidentes e Incidentes de Aviacin Civil, International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, International Tenerife Memorial March 27, 1977, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, "580 killed in history's worst air disaster", "How KLM accepted their responsibility for the accident", "The Cockpit, the Cabin, and Social Psychology", "Wreck of 747's Sets Back Cause Of Insurgents on Canary Islands", "The Tenerife Airport Disaster the worst in aviation history", "Enige overlevende KLM-toestel vliegramp Tenerife blikt na veertig jaar terug", "Cockpit Voice Recorders: Transcripts: KLM 4805", "Advertisement: KLM. Video, 00:05:10, Chess gets a risqu makeover. Note: this accident was previously featured in episode 12 of the plane crash series on November 25th, 2017, prior to the series arrival on Medium. [4], After the KLM plane had started its takeoff roll, the tower instructed the Pan Am crew to "report when runway clear." For the next minute, the crew struggled to figure out which exit was in fact the third one. [20] There were no markings or signs to identify the runway exits and they were in conditions of poor visibility. Read about our approach to external linking. In March 1977, two jumbo jets collided at Tenerife Airport killing 583 people. The process of rounding up all the KLM passengers proved to be extraordinarily difficult, ultimately running until 16:00, an hour and a half after Gran Canaria reopened. The Tenerife Airport Disaster happened on March 27, 1977, at 5:06 p.m., when two Boeing 747s operating the flights KLM 4805 and Pan Am 1736 collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife, causing the deadliest accident in aviation history that resulted in the loss of 583 crew members and passengers from both flights. Video, 00:00:22, WATCH: Prince William reveals who's the better cook at home, Snowboarder takes to the slopes of Londonderry. The full load of fuel ignited, and the wreckage slid down the runway for another 300 meters, consumed in flames. All of these factors helped create a situation in which unambiguous radio communications were essential to safety. [12], Both flights had been routine until they approached the islands. The 747 continued to accelerate, barreling directly toward the Pan Am jet still searching for the fourth exit. As the crew urged the survivors to run away from the burning plane, a damaged engine exploded, throwing debris in all directions and killing a flight attendant. But Braggs promise to report when clear was not so straightforward as we are still on the runway, and Shreuder was probably wondering, clear of what? Captain van Zantens emphatic response that the Pan Am had indeed cleared the runway was apparently sufficient to convince him that nothing was wrong. That would mean they should leave the runway via the fourth and final exit, which was easy for a 747 to use. The Pan Am's engines were still running for a few minutes after the accident despite first officer Bragg's intention to turn them off.