events
Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). Sixty-one survived on the Pan Am flight. This is the deadliest aviation accident in history.
Related Wikipedia articles
Tenerife airport disaster
1977 runway collision at Los Rodeos Airport
The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on 27 March 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger jets collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The incident occurred at 5:06 pm WET (UTC+0) in dense fog, when KLM Flight 4805 initiated its takeoff run,…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Boeing 747
American wide-body four-engined jet long-range aircraft
The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet 2+1⁄2 times its size, to reduce its seat cost by 30%. In…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Airliner
Aircraft designed for commercial transportation of passengers and cargo
An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest of them are wide-body jets which are…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Tenerife
Largest and most populous Canary island
Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With a land area of 2,034.38 square kilometres (785.48 sq mi) and a population of 967,575 inhabitants as of July 2025, it is the most populous island in Spain and the entire…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Canary Islands
Spanish archipelago and region in the Atlantic Ocean
The Canary Islands or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost autonomous community of Spain. They are located 100 kilometers to the northwest of the African continent. The islands have a population of 2.26 million people and are the most populous…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
KLM
Flag carrier of the Netherlands
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM, is the flag carrier of the Netherlands. KLM’s headquarters are located in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. Founded…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Pan Am
Defunct flag carrier airline of the United States (1927–1991)
Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for much of the 20th century. The first…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)