Biography
Born in Lisse, Netherlands, Veldhuyzen van Zanten obtained his private pilot’s licence on June 21, 1947, and his commercial pilot's licence on April 18, 1950. That year, he began working for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines as a flight director, and in 1951, he commenced duty as a first officer on the Douglas DC-3. He then obtained his Flight Radio Telephone Operator’s Licence on September 22, 1952, Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence on October 19, 1956, and Flight Navigator’s Licence on August 6, 1963.
In addition to his duties as a regular line pilot, he had been the chief flight instructor for various aircraft. At the time of his death, he was in charge of training all of KLM's Boeing 747 pilots, and the head of KLM's flight training department. Jan Bartelski, a KLM captain until 1978 and later president of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations, was a contemporary of Van Zanten and knew him personally. In his book Disasters In The Air, he describes Van Zanten as:
a serious and introverted individual but with an open-hearted and friendly disposition. He was a studious type and regarded as the company’s pilot expert on the Boeing 747 systems.
And adds that:
He believed in partnership, to the extent that he insisted on his first officers addressing him during flight as «Jaap» and not «Captain van Zanten».
When the news of the disaster broke the KLM executives looked for Veldhuyzen van Zanten to lead their investigation, it was only soon after that they found out that he had been involved in the accident.
On January 23, 1971, Veldhuyzen van Zanten was type-rated on the Boeing 747. That same year, Veldhuyzen van Zanten, along with two of his colleagues, went to Seattle to take delivery of KLM’s first 747, the Mississippi (registered PH-BUA). At the time of the disaster, he had 11,700 flight hours (1,545 of which were on the Boeing 747).
Veldhuyzen van Zanten was also the captain featured on some of KLM’s advertisements. While this has been attributed to his high position within KLM, Jan Bartelski, for instance, argues that Veldhuyzen van Zanten was photographed simply because he was the only captain available (due to his responsibilities as a flight instructor) to KLM Public Relations, as others were away flying.
Veldhuyzen van Zanten lived in Sassenheim, Netherlands. Some of his interests included music, the United States, and the Racing Team Holland. He was survived by his wife and two children.
Read more about this topic: Jacob Veldhuyzen Van Zanten
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)