29 years since Tenerife and US air safety today.

The worst aviation disaster in history occured. At Tenerife in the Canary Islands, two 747s one belonging to Pan Am, the other to KLM, collided in the fog that spring day. Ironically the disaster happened on the ground, as the KLM tried to take off when the Pan Am plane hadn't quite cleared the runway. 583 people died that day.

Like most aviation disasters, a chain of seemingly innocent or inconsequential events ended in tragedy. Most but not all the blame falls on the KLM pilot, Captain Jacob Van Zanten who despite his many years of piloting, made a series of fatal mistakes mostly due to impatience.

Many lessons were learned from this disaster, but at a heavy price. Right now the US is going through a never before seen period of air safety. With no major airline crashes in over three years. We still need to keep our vigil up, complanecy has been the cause of more than one air crash.

Airdisaster.com has more information on the events of that day on Tenerife 29 years ago. The report is good, but I disagree. Captain Van Zanten was not solely responsible for that tragic day in 1977.

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