Tenerife Airport Disaster - Flight History

Flight History

For both planes, Tenerife was an unscheduled stop. Their destination was Gran Canaria International Airport (also known as Las Palmas Airport), serving Las Palmas on the nearby island of Gran Canaria. Both are in the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean off the south west coast of Morocco.

Pan Am Flight 1736 had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport with an intermediate stop at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. The aircraft was a Boeing 747–121, registration N736PA, named "Clipper Victor". Of the 380 passengers (mostly in retirement age, but also including two children), 14 had boarded in New York, where the crew was also changed. The new crew consisted of Captain Victor Grubbs, First Officer Robert Bragg, and Flight Engineer George Warns; there were 13 other crew members. The same aircraft had operated the inaugural 747 commercial flight on January 22, 1970.

KLM Flight 4805, a charter flight for Holland International Travel Group, N.V. from the Netherlands, had taken off four hours before from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Its captain was Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten and the first officer was Klaas Meurs. The aircraft was a Boeing 747-206B, registration PH-BUF, named "Rijn (Rhine)". The KLM jet had 14 crew members and 235 passengers, including 52 children. Most of the KLM passengers were Dutch; four Germans, two Austrians and two Americans were also on the plane. After the aircraft landed at Tenerife, a Dutch tour guide named Robina van Lanschot, who lived on the island in the town of Puerto de la Cruz and wanted to see her boyfriend there that night, chose not to re-board the 747, leaving 234 passengers on board.