At the height of the tourist season, a bomb exploded at the Gran Canaria airport, main airport for the Canary Islands, closing the airport. Air traffic was notified and told to divert air traffic to Los Rodeos airport on Tenerife, including two Boeing 747s—KLM 4805, out of JFK in New York, and Pan Am 1736, out of Amsterdam. Los Rodeos was not prepared for this increased traffic. It was Sunday, and only two air traffic controllers were on duty. The influx of large international aircraft overwhelmed the small airport. The altitude at Los Rodeos was over 2100 feet, and the air strips were frequently obscured by clouds and fog. The airport was old and has no ground radar. A new international airport was already under construction on the southern coast of the island to replace the small, outmoded airport. In the hours after the bombing, the single airstrip at Los Rodeos was overwhelmed with the increased traffic. 

All traffic had to be directed down the taxiway to the end of the airstrip to take off. The traffic flow was especially complicated as the same airstrip also had to be used for landings. KLM 4805, a huge 747, taxied to the fueling station to take on 14,500 gallons of jet fuel. The flight crew wanted to take on additional fuel so it would not have to refuel later in the journey. Unfortunately, the jet’s wingspread prevented other planes from moving around the stopped plane to begin their take-offs. Pan Am 1736 waited two hours on the tarmac behind KLM waiting for a take off slot. The KLM crew was headed by Captain Jacob van Zanten, a veteran pilot, who routinely trained other KLM pilots. Although he had more than 11,000 hours of flying, his training duties had kept van Zanten out of the cockpit on many occasions. Most of his time was spent in a training simulator. He had flown an average of only 21 hours a month and none in the previous 2 weeks. In the hours that Pan Am and KLM spent on the taxiway, weather conditioning had deteriorated. Fog had rolled in, and visibility had fallen to less than 1,000 feet. With no ground radar, pilots were limited to communication by radio with tower control and with each other. Van Zanten was eager to take off from Tenerife and resume the airline’s scheduled flights. 

Complicating his preparations was the knowledge that his crew was rapidly approaching a time-out. If he was not able to take off quickly, the crew would “time out,” or reach a point at which they would be forced to go off duty. If the time out occurred, KLM would be forced to pay for the crew and passengers to stay at Los Rodeos until a replacement crew could be sent in. The taxiway was too small for the 747 jets to use to reach the end of the runway. Instead, both were told to taxi down the active runway, turn and wait for takeoff approval. KLM reached the end first and was told to “hold.” Pilot van Zanten pivoted the plane and started winding the engines up for takeoff. A crewmember in the cockpit noticed the error and asked pilot van Zanten if he heard the hold message. Van Zanten angrily silenced the crewmember and temporarily stopped the takeoff sequence. Los Rodeos ATC was unfamiliar with handling large 747s and gave Pan Am instructions to turn on a small turn off, C3, which would have required the huge plane to make almost a 180° turn. Pan Am was using a small sectional map of the airport and listening to instructions from the tower. 

Just as Pan Am approached the turnoff, pilot Victor Grubbs was distracted by a radio message from KLM stating the plane was “now at takeoff.” Frantically, both the tower and Pan Am tried to contact KLM to let them know that Pan Am was still on the runway. Tragically, the two messages were silenced by a radio squelch, and KLM did not hear the transmission. Van Zanten released his brakes and accelerated to 180 miles per hour, barreling down the runway toward the Pan Am jumbo jet frantically trying to exit the airstrip. In the KLM cockpit, no crewmember was heard questioning van Zanten’s decision. The KLM crew saw the Pan Am jet on the runway and tried to rush the takeoff. Pan Am fired its engines and tried to taxi. But both were unsuccessful. KLM clipped the top of the Pan Am jet with its landing gear and slammed into the runway thousands of feet down. Of the 396 passengers on the Pan Am jet, only 61 survived. All 234 passengers and crew on the KLM perished. The role of the 14,700 pounds of jet fuel the KLM took on has been debated since. 

The crash remains the world’s worst air disaster. Both pilots have been faulted for mistakes made. The KLM crew took off without ATC clearance. The Pan Am pilots failed to follow ATC instructions to exit at turn C3, instead turning at C4 farther down the runway. Both flight crews used nonstandard terminology, such as van Zanten’s statement that he was “at take off.” Weather and visibility were also factors. But the bottom line is that 583 people died at a small airport in the Canary Islands, on the ground.

1. What is the case all about? ( 5points)

2. If you are going to create a project management task force to address the biggest issue, how will you do it? What is the project all about? Its objectives and who will be into the project including their expertise.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 The case is about the Tenerife airport disaster which occurred on March 27 1977 when two Boeing 747 aircraft collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Ai... View the full answer