Speaker 1: Pushkin. Did you know that the most deadly aviation accident
Speaker 1: in history happened on the ground? You might if you're
Speaker 1: a Pushkin Plus subscriber, because the episode you're about to
Speaker 1: hear has been available to those subscribers for a year.
Speaker 1: We thought that everyone else might enjoy it and the
Speaker 1: gripping sequel in a terrifying two part special on the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven ten reef air disaster. And if you're
Speaker 1: a Pushkin Plus subscriber already, thank you. I hope you're
Speaker 1: enjoying our special episodes about the Panama Canal. And there
Speaker 1: is another exclusive cautionary tale coming very soon on the
Speaker 1: cancer beating therrac Machine. But for now, we want everyone
Speaker 1: to enjoy this terrifying but fascinating cautionary tale about the
Speaker 1: fatal consequence of a simple miscommunication. Captain Jakob Veldhausen van
Speaker 1: Zanten opens up the throttles on his Boeing seven four seven.
Speaker 1: We're going, says Captain van Zanten in Dutch. The big
Speaker 1: KLM plane starts to trundle down the runway. On board
Speaker 1: are two hundred and thirty five passengers looking forward to
Speaker 1: a package holiday on the Canary Islands off the coast
Speaker 1: of Morocco. But their holidays have not got off to
Speaker 1: a good start because they've had to land on the
Speaker 1: wrong Canary island. They've been hanging around in the airport
Speaker 1: all afternoon waiting to be able to take off for
Speaker 1: the short hop over to the right Canary island. Finally
Speaker 1: they're on their way. The crew were keen to get going,
Speaker 1: it's been a long day. They just want to drop
Speaker 1: off their passengers, pick up the ones who are waiting,
Speaker 1: and get back home to Amsterdam. The seven four seven
Speaker 1: gathers pace. The runway is shrouded in thick fog. You
Speaker 1: can't see far ahead. The flight engineer says something. Captain
Speaker 1: Vanzantin doesn't catch it. What was that, he asked. It's
Speaker 1: not off yet. The Pan American off the runway. The
Speaker 1: flight engineer means. There's another seven four seven, the Pan
Speaker 1: am that's also been hanging around all afternoon waiting to
Speaker 1: make the hop from one island to the other. The
Speaker 1: KLM plane taxied down the runway first, then turned around.
Speaker 1: The Pan American plane was going to taxi part of
Speaker 1: the way down the runway behind them, then turn off
Speaker 1: onto the first available exit. But was the pan American
Speaker 1: plane definitely off the runway now, well, says Captain Vanzanten. Yes,
Speaker 1: well is the literal translation, but the senses Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: perhaps with a hint of annoyance. Of course, the PanAm
Speaker 1: plane is off the runway. Faster and faster goes the
Speaker 1: KLM plane. It passes one hundred and fifty miles an hour,
Speaker 1: too fast now to abort the takeoff. And then through
Speaker 1: the fog a shape begins to appear on the runway
Speaker 1: ahead of them. It's the PanAm plane. Oh God damn it,
Speaker 1: says Captain van Zanten. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to cautionary tales. The Canary Islands are a group of
Speaker 1: volcanoes poking up above the Atlantic Ocean. They've been ruled
Speaker 1: from Spain since the fourteen hundreds, the colonial history of
Speaker 1: slavery and sugarcane. By nineteen seventy seven, the economy has
Speaker 1: shifted to tourism, and most Canary Islanders are happy enough
Speaker 1: to be part of Spain, which is just emerging into
Speaker 1: democracy after decades of dictatorship. Most but not all, the
Speaker 1: movement for the Independence and self determination of the Canarias
Speaker 1: Archipelago doesn't have many followers, but the followers it has
Speaker 1: are zealous. On Sunday, March twenty seventh, nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: two young supporters of the movement walk into the airport
Speaker 1: on Grand Canaria with a bomb in a suitcase. The
Speaker 1: two men leave the suitcase surreptitiously outside a florist's shop
Speaker 1: in the terminal building. Then they call the airport.
Speaker 2: Switchboard evacuate the airport lanch. It bombs.
Speaker 1: The switchboard operator is still getting the message to airport
Speaker 1: security when the bomb goes off, glass shatters, plaster falls
Speaker 1: from the ceiling. Could have been worse. When the smoke clears,
Speaker 1: only a few people have been injured. But did the
Speaker 1: voice on the phone say they'd planted a bomb or bombs?
Speaker 1: They'd better get everyone out of the airport and conduct
Speaker 1: a thorough search. Up in the air Captain Jakob Veeldhausen
Speaker 1: van Zanten is preparing to land his seven four seven,
Speaker 1: filled with expectant holidaymakers. Vanzanten has just turned fifty. At KLM,
Speaker 1: he's something of a celebrity. He's the head of the
Speaker 1: flight training department. He drives a yellow Ferrari Dino. The
Speaker 1: Airlines magazine adverts feature an image of Van Zanten at
Speaker 1: the cockpit controls, looking back over his shoulder, silver haired,
Speaker 1: sun tanned and confident with a gleaming white smile. At KLM.
Speaker 1: The advert promises, you'll find your trust sincerely reciprocated thanks
Speaker 1: to that singular Dutch ability for doing things well. Van
Speaker 1: zanton hasn't been flying much these days. He's mostly been
Speaker 1: training others. Later in the week, he's due in Ireland
Speaker 1: to oversee exams for trainee pilots on the seven four seven,
Speaker 1: and in Zurich for an international meeting on aviation safety.
Speaker 1: But he knows he needs to keep his hand in
Speaker 1: with actual flights, so he's taken this one. It should
Speaker 1: be straightforward from Amsterdam to Grand Canaria, then straight back home,
Speaker 1: hopefully in time for dinner. But then comes the message
Speaker 1: from Grand Canaria airport. Don't land. A bomb's gone off
Speaker 1: circle above us while we figure out what to do.
Speaker 1: Then we think there might be another bomb. We have
Speaker 1: to clear the airport and search. It'll take a while.
Speaker 1: Land in tena Reef wait there till we give the
Speaker 1: all clear. Ten a Reef is the next island over
Speaker 1: from Grand Canaria, about fifty miles away. The airport is tiny,
Speaker 1: it's not really set up for seven four sevens, and
Speaker 1: Vanzantin's KLM flight isn't the only one that's been diverted
Speaker 1: to ten Reef because of the bomb. They're soon followed
Speaker 1: by another seven four seven, the Pan American, and a
Speaker 1: lot of smaller planes. They all land taxi off the
Speaker 1: runway and find a place to park as best they can.
Speaker 1: The tarmac's getting crowded and nobody knows how long the
Speaker 1: delay is going to be. For Captain vanzanton that presents
Speaker 1: a headache. KLM has rules on how long a flight
Speaker 1: crew is allowed to be on duty inneed. Rules like
Speaker 1: that you don't want tired and overworked pilots in charge
Speaker 1: of a plane, But the rules have recently changed. Before
Speaker 1: they were more like company guidelines. The captain could use
Speaker 1: discretion if they went a bit over the limit, with
Speaker 1: a good enough excuse, they'd be forgiven. Not anymore, Pilot
Speaker 1: overtime rules have been written into Dutch law. That's not
Speaker 1: all With the old guidelines, there'd been a simple way
Speaker 1: to calculate the maximum hours the crew could work. It
Speaker 1: out themselves. With the new law, it's more complicated. Kalm's
Speaker 1: headquarters in the Netherlands have to apply a formula to
Speaker 1: work it out. Van Zanton walks to the control tower
Speaker 1: and asks to use the phone. He calls headquarters, explains
Speaker 1: the situation and says, by when will I have to
Speaker 1: leave Grand Canaria? If I want to be sure I
Speaker 1: can make it back to Amsterdam without exceeding the time limit,
Speaker 1: good question. Say if you can get off Tenerif in
Speaker 1: the next hour or so, he'll probably be fine. If not, HM,
Speaker 1: we'll figure it out and send you a telex In
Speaker 1: Grand Canaria. So Van Zanton doesn't yet know how much
Speaker 1: time he's got, but he does know that if he
Speaker 1: gets home a minute too late, he'll be in trouble,
Speaker 1: maybe serious trouble. The captain now has personal legal responsibility
Speaker 1: for not exceeding the crew's maximum duty time. In the cockpit,
Speaker 1: the crew discuss what all these recent changes mean. What
Speaker 1: are the repercussions you'll face the judge.
Speaker 3: Is it a question of fines or of prison?
Speaker 1: Van Zanton joins the conversation.
Speaker 4: At any rate, he says, it would mean revocation of
Speaker 4: your license for quite a while.
Speaker 2: And that means money.
Speaker 1: The clock ticks on, there's still no word from Grand
Speaker 1: Canaria Airport on how they're bomb sweep is going. Vanz
Speaker 1: Anton really doesn't want to be stuck on Tenerif or
Speaker 1: Grand Canaria for the night. He's got a busy, weakerhead,
Speaker 1: and besides, wherever they're going to magic up last minute
Speaker 1: hotel rooms for a planeload of stranded passengers, but he
Speaker 1: can't afford to risk his license. He starts to think
Speaker 1: about what will happen when they finally get to Grand Canaria.
Speaker 1: How long will it take to turn the plane around
Speaker 1: for Amsterdam. He'd been planning to refuel there for the
Speaker 1: journey home, but after all the delays and diversions, the
Speaker 1: airport's bound to be manic. Maybe he should try to
Speaker 1: save time by refueling here in Tenerif. Instead, he calls
Speaker 1: the control tower and makes the order. Fifteen thousand gallons
Speaker 1: fuel trucks arrive, and wouldn't you know it, No sooner
Speaker 1: has the nozzle gone into the airplane. The news comes
Speaker 1: through from Grand Canaria. They've finished the search, no more bombs,
Speaker 1: the airport's open again. Well, they've started refueling. Now they
Speaker 1: may as well finish. Some other smaller planes start to
Speaker 1: taxi pass and make their takeoffs for Grand Canarrea. But
Speaker 1: further down the tarmac there's one plane that can't get
Speaker 1: past Vanzanton. It's too big. It's the other seven four seven,
Speaker 1: the Pan American. Its pilot comes on the radio in
Speaker 1: Van Zanton's cockpit.
Speaker 3: How much longer are you going to be with that refueling?
Speaker 1: About twenty minutes, says van Zanten. The two big planes
Speaker 1: sit and wait, and as they do, the weather changes.
Speaker 1: The island of Tenerif is a twelve thousand foot volcano
Speaker 1: poking up above the ocean. The airport is on the
Speaker 1: side of the mountain two thousand feet above sea level.
Speaker 1: Sometimes clouds form quickly higher up the slopes and roll
Speaker 1: down towards the airport. That happens now. By the time
Speaker 1: the ALM plane has been fueled up, thick fog is
Speaker 1: all around. Cautionary tails will be back after the break.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen nineties, academic researchers ask their students to
Speaker 1: imagine a hypothetical plane crash on a national border with
Speaker 1: debris strewn on both sides. They wanted to know what
Speaker 1: the students thought should happen next. Where should the survivors
Speaker 1: be buried? If they were mostly European, what if they
Speaker 1: were traveling circus performers of no fixed abode. About half
Speaker 1: the students thoughtfully engaged with the question of the most
Speaker 1: appropriate burial site. Only half said, hold on, you asked
Speaker 1: whether survivors should be buried, You don't bury survivors. They're
Speaker 1: still alive. The researchers were trying to learn more about
Speaker 1: a curious phenomenon known as the Moses illusion. It had
Speaker 1: been discovered a few years earlier by the social scientist
Speaker 1: Thomas Erickson and the psychologist Mark Matson. How many animals
Speaker 1: of each different kind did Moses take onto the ark?
Speaker 1: The answer, of course, is that it wasn't Moses, it
Speaker 1: was Noah. Still, when Ericson and Matson asked experimental subjects
Speaker 1: to this question, they found roughly half gave the confident
Speaker 1: answer too. It's not that these people didn't know who
Speaker 1: took the animals on the ark. When asked afterwards, they
Speaker 1: were well aware that Noah was the arc guy and
Speaker 1: Moses was the one who parted the Red Sea and
Speaker 1: brought down the Ten Commandments. So why hadn't they noticed
Speaker 1: that the question was wrong. Ericson and Matson were intrigued.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they thought it's because Moses and Noah sounds so
Speaker 1: what are like They're both two syllable names. They picked
Speaker 1: another two syllable name and ran an experiment. How many
Speaker 1: animals did Nixon take on the arc? This time? Nobody
Speaker 1: answered to Everyone said Nixon, and they tried another old
Speaker 1: Testament name instead, one that sounds nothing like Noah. How
Speaker 1: many animals did Abraham take on the arc? Again? A
Speaker 1: lot of people answered too. Language scientists are still investigating
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on when people make this kind of error.
Speaker 1: They run experiments scanning people's brains as they listened to
Speaker 1: different sentences that might trigger the illusion. But the basic
Speaker 1: problem seems clear enough. Sometimes the brain fills in the gaps.
Speaker 1: It hears what we expect to hear rather than what's
Speaker 1: actually said something something arc animals. How many another word
Speaker 1: in the sentence sounds incongruous like Nixon. We pay attention
Speaker 1: and the illusion breaks. But when all the other words
Speaker 1: sound conceptually related arc animals, some dude from the Bible,
Speaker 1: we often don't notice the mistake. The researchers who asked
Speaker 1: students about burying survivors of a plane crash found something similar.
Speaker 1: They wanted to test how variations on phrasing the question
Speaker 1: would affect how many people fell for the illusion. But
Speaker 1: they also tested a question without that conceptual link. Instead
Speaker 1: of asking about a plane crash, they asked about a
Speaker 1: bicycle accident. Where should we bury the survivors? Nobody suggested location,
Speaker 1: apparently because survivors isn't a word you usually hear. With
Speaker 1: bicycle accident, we notice straight away that something's wrong, but
Speaker 1: survivors and plane crash they often go together, so the
Speaker 1: brain might not flag up that the sentence makes no sense.
Speaker 1: We just hear something something plane crash, bury ware, and
Speaker 1: we fill in the blanks for ourselves. At the airport
Speaker 1: in Tenerif, at long last, the final drop of the
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand gallons of fuel has been deposited in the
Speaker 1: tank of the KLM plane. An airport employee comes into
Speaker 1: the cockpit to give Captain van Zanten the good news.
Speaker 1: Is Captain van Zanten so stressed by the delay that
Speaker 1: he can't think straight. If he is, he's doing a
Speaker 1: good job of hiding it. The airport staff said that
Speaker 1: he was kind, polite and easy going. He gets on
Speaker 1: the radio to the control tower.
Speaker 4: Tenerif Kalem four eight zero five is ready to start.
Speaker 1: The controller instructs him to taxi down the runway. Usually
Speaker 1: a plane will use a separate taxiway to get themselves
Speaker 1: to the right end of the runway, but that's not
Speaker 1: an option. Here in the cockpit, the KLM crew can
Speaker 1: also hear everything that's being said between the control tower
Speaker 1: and the pan And plane called Clipper Victor. They're using
Speaker 1: the same radio frequency.
Speaker 3: Tenerif Clipper are one seven three six Clipper one seven
Speaker 3: three six ten reef, we were instructed to contact you,
Speaker 3: and also taxi down the runway.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: Affirmative? Taxi into the runway and leave the runway third
Speaker 4: third to your left, third third to the left.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Captain van Zanton knows that the pan AM plane,
Speaker 1: the Clipper one seven three six, is going to taxi
Speaker 1: down the runway behind him. The clouds are coming and going.
Speaker 1: The fog thickens and easies and thickens again. At times
Speaker 1: you can barely see more than three hundred meters ahead,
Speaker 1: less than a tenth of the length of the runway
Speaker 1: from the control tower. The controller can't see the planes
Speaker 1: on the runway. He has to ask where they are,
Speaker 1: and in the fog, it's not always easy for the
Speaker 1: pilots to be sure. How many of those exits to
Speaker 1: the left they've gone past?
Speaker 4: Kalemn four eight zero five? How many taxiways did you pass?
Speaker 5: I think we just passed Charlie four.
Speaker 4: Now, okay, at the end of the runway, make it
Speaker 4: one to eighty and report ready for EIGHTC clearance.
Speaker 5: Okay, sir.
Speaker 1: EIGHTC clearance. That's air traffic control. Before they can depart,
Speaker 1: planes need two kinds of clearance. There's clearance for the
Speaker 1: takeoff itself, and there's ATC clearance that's for where to
Speaker 1: go after you've taken off their separate things. In the
Speaker 1: KLM cockpit, another conversation between the pan and plane and
Speaker 1: the control tower comes over the radio.
Speaker 3: Would you confirm that you want the clipper one seven
Speaker 3: three six to turn left at the third intersection.
Speaker 4: Third one, sir one two three third third one, Very good,
Speaker 4: Thank you, clipper one seven three six. Report leaving the runway.
Speaker 1: Report leaving the runway. The controller is asking them to
Speaker 1: report on the radio when they're leaving the runway. Is
Speaker 1: it possible Captain van Zanten misheard and thought they were
Speaker 1: reporting they were leaving the runway. Maybe Captain Vanzanton gets
Speaker 1: to the end of the runway and turns his plane around.
Speaker 1: That isn't easy. The seven four seven is a big
Speaker 1: plane with a wide turning circle, but he manages appointing
Speaker 1: the right way. Now in the cockpit, the first officer
Speaker 1: is going through the last of the formalities.
Speaker 5: Buddy gave dis Armed landing lights on, checklists.
Speaker 1: Completed, Vanzanten releases the brakes and starts to move forward.
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, we don't have an eighty SE clearance.
Speaker 1: No I know that, says van Zanten. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: ask hmm did Vanzanton know that or had he forgotten?
Speaker 1: Vanzanton was the head of KLM's flight training department. It
Speaker 1: had been twelve weeks since he had been in charge
Speaker 1: of an actual plane. He's more used to instructing trainees
Speaker 1: in the simulator and as the instructor, he also plays
Speaker 1: the role of the controller. He's the one who gives
Speaker 1: clearances to the trainee pilot. Has he got too accustomed
Speaker 1: to not needing clearance from anyone else? Perhaps the first
Speaker 1: officer gets on the radio.
Speaker 5: The KLM for eight zero or five is now ready
Speaker 5: for takeoff, and we're waiting for our eighty C clearance.
Speaker 1: Remember, they need two types of clearance from the control tower,
Speaker 1: the eighty C clearance for their route after takeoff and
Speaker 1: the clearance for takeoff itself. The first officer has asked
Speaker 1: for both types of clearance, Explicitly we're waiting for our
Speaker 1: ATC clearance and implicitly we're ready for takeoff. In response,
Speaker 1: the controller gives him the ATC clearance, but doesn't tell
Speaker 1: him that he can take off yet.
Speaker 4: Kalem eight seven zero five, you are clear to the
Speaker 4: PAPA beacon. Climb to and maintain flight level nine zero
Speaker 4: right turn after takeoff, proceed with heading zero four zero
Speaker 4: until intercepting these three to two five radio from Las Palmas.
Speaker 1: By the way, what's the KLM flight's number? In that
Speaker 1: last message, the controller messed it up. He said eight
Speaker 1: seven zero five, not four eight zero five?
Speaker 2: Did you notice? Why should you?
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. There's only one KLM plane here. Everyone
Speaker 1: knew what he meant. Maybe that's why our brains evolved
Speaker 1: to be susceptible to the Moses illusion. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: when we hear what we expect to hear, it's also
Speaker 1: what the person we're talking to intended to say. It's
Speaker 1: our brain helpfully filtering out a misspeak. But the Moses
Speaker 1: illusion can be deadly. Captain van Zanten was expecting to
Speaker 1: hear that he was cleared for takeoff. He got only
Speaker 1: the air traffic control clearance, but the sentence did also
Speaker 1: contain the word takeoff and a bunch of other words
Speaker 1: that are all conceptually related. It seems that all he
Speaker 1: heard was something something cleared take off. We're going, said
Speaker 1: Captain van Zanten. He opened the throttles and the plane
Speaker 1: began to move. The calamity could still have been averted.
Speaker 1: We'll hear why it wasn't. After the break. When Captain
Speaker 1: van Zanten said we're going, his first officer was just
Speaker 1: finishing reading back the air traffic control clearance to the controlled.
Speaker 5: Roger, Sir, we are clear to the PAPA Beacon flight
Speaker 5: level nine zero right turnout zero for zero until intercepting
Speaker 5: the three two five, and we're now at takeoff.
Speaker 1: Is that what he said at takeoff? That's what most
Speaker 1: of the investigators heard. Some think he said we're now
Speaker 1: taken off. But the controller seems to have heard at
Speaker 1: takeoff and understood it to mean we're in position ready
Speaker 1: for takeoff. Okay, said the controller.
Speaker 2: Stand by for a takeoff. I will call you.
Speaker 1: But then a tragic coincidence, both the KLM plane and
Speaker 1: the pan AM plane. Remember are using the same frequency
Speaker 1: to talk to the control tower. In the cockpit of
Speaker 1: the PanAm plane, they've also heard the KLM first officer
Speaker 1: say we're now at takeoff, and they think they'd better
Speaker 1: make sure everyone knows where They are still moving slowly
Speaker 1: along the runway trying to count the exit. It's in
Speaker 1: the fog.
Speaker 2: And we're still taxiing down the runway.
Speaker 1: But both transmissions happen at the same time, and that
Speaker 1: causes interference. In the KLM cockpit, all they hear.
Speaker 2: Is step back, I will call you.
Speaker 1: They might just have made out what was being said
Speaker 1: if they'd been listening closely. They weren't. Captain van Zanten
Speaker 1: was pushing the big plane down the runway faster and
Speaker 1: faster through the fog. But then another transmission on the
Speaker 1: radio between the controller and the PanAm plane, and this
Speaker 1: one was perfectly clear.
Speaker 2: About a fore six, report runway clear. Okay, we'll report
Speaker 2: when we're clear.
Speaker 1: Captain Vanzanton doesn't respond to this, nor does the first officer.
Speaker 1: The flight engineer has heard the exchange and he speaks up,
Speaker 1: Is he.
Speaker 3: Not off yet?
Speaker 2: Then? What was that?
Speaker 3: It's not off yet?
Speaker 5: The Pan American y?
Speaker 1: Well, of course, the PanAm plane off the runway. Why
Speaker 1: is van Zanton so sure? Perhaps because he mistakenly believes
Speaker 1: he's been cleared for takeoff and he knows the controller
Speaker 1: wouldn't have given him that clearance if the runway was
Speaker 1: still blocked. But hasn't he just heard that exchange on
Speaker 1: the radio with the controller saying report when runway clear,
Speaker 1: and PanAm replying we'll report when we're clear. Maybe he
Speaker 1: wasn't listening, or maybe he half heard and it was
Speaker 1: another Moses illusion something something runway clear. Van Zanten heard
Speaker 1: what he expected. After every accident, there are some causes
Speaker 1: you just have to file under one of those things.
Speaker 1: There isn't much of a lesson we can draw from
Speaker 1: the strange sequence of the bomb, the diversion, the refueling
Speaker 1: and the fog. But sometimes there are causes you can
Speaker 1: learn from and they change how things are done. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: all members of a flight's crew are training to speak
Speaker 1: up respectfully but forcefully when they think the captain is
Speaker 1: making a mistake. There's room to wander if the first
Speaker 1: officer and the flight engineer felt too timid to contradict
Speaker 1: Captain Jakob Veldhausen van Zanten, the celebrity pilot whose face
Speaker 1: beamed from the KLM adverts. Some investigators think the first
Speaker 1: officer said we're now taken off in a tone of surprise,
Speaker 1: trying to alert the controller that Van Zanten had jumped
Speaker 1: the gun. Maybe, but just a few moments earlier he
Speaker 1: had reminded van Zanten that they didn't have air traffic
Speaker 1: control clearance. That doesn't sound like he was too overawed
Speaker 1: to point out when his boss was messing something up.
Speaker 1: If he'd realized they weren't cleared for takeoff, he'd surely
Speaker 1: have mentioned that too. What about the flight engineer. Was
Speaker 1: he genuinely reassured by van Zanton's emphatic javelle assuming the
Speaker 1: cap must have access to information he doesn't know, or
Speaker 1: did he spend the last few seconds of his life
Speaker 1: thinking should I insist he aborts the takeoff? Paddled a
Speaker 1: layers and I'll get the blame. Would he have been
Speaker 1: more insistent if it had the kind of training flight
Speaker 1: crews get today. We'll never know. But something else changed
Speaker 1: too as a result of what happened that day on
Speaker 1: Tenerif let's pick up our copy of a Guide to
Speaker 1: Phraseology for General aviation Pilots in Europe and turn to
Speaker 1: page seven.
Speaker 4: Listen carefully to make sure you understand what.
Speaker 1: Is said to you.
Speaker 4: It is easy to hear what you expect rather than
Speaker 4: what is actually said.
Speaker 1: It is easy to hear what you expect rather than
Speaker 1: what is actually said. A perfect warning not to succumb
Speaker 1: to the Moses illusion. Pilots are now trained to be
Speaker 1: aware of the risk. But apart from asking people to
Speaker 1: listen more carefully, what can we do if we want
Speaker 1: to minimize the chance that someone might fall prey to
Speaker 1: the illusion. One approaches simply not to say the words
Speaker 1: that might lead to confusion. Turn to page seventeen of
Speaker 1: our Guide to Aviation Phraseology.
Speaker 4: To avoid confusion. The word cleared is only used in
Speaker 4: connection with a clearance to take.
Speaker 3: Off or land.
Speaker 4: The words take off are only used when an aircraft
Speaker 4: is cleared for takeoff or when canceling a takeoff clearance.
Speaker 1: Pilots and controllers are now taught to use different words
Speaker 1: in different situations. Instead of ready for takeoff, say ready
Speaker 1: for departure. Instead of after takeoff, say wants airborne. If
Speaker 1: you want to make sure nobody hears something something cleared
Speaker 1: take off, don't say the words cleared or take off
Speaker 1: at all. The KLM plane is hurtling down the fog
Speaker 1: bound runway in Tenerif, and there's the PanAm plane still
Speaker 1: searching for the right exit. Captain van Zanton is going
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty miles an hour, too quickly
Speaker 1: to stop. But is he going quickly enough to get
Speaker 1: into the air. He yanks on the controls. If the
Speaker 1: nose points up, the tail slams down into the runway.
Speaker 1: It leaves a streak of metal and the tarmac twenty
Speaker 1: meters long. At last, the plane starts to lift off
Speaker 1: the runway, but it struggles. If only it didn't have
Speaker 1: those extra fifteen thousand gallons of fuel on board. The
Speaker 1: nose clears the top of the PanAm plane, but the
Speaker 1: rest isn't going to make it.
Speaker 2: Oh God, damn it.
Speaker 1: The bottom of the plane clips the top of the other.
Speaker 1: It crashes back onto the tarmac and careens along the runway.
Speaker 1: The collision ruptures the fuel tanks. The fifteen thousand gallons
Speaker 1: explode into a fireball hot enough to melt the fuselage.
Speaker 1: Flames rise high in the air. Everyone on board is
Speaker 1: killed instantly. Forty four of the bodies are so badly
Speaker 1: burned they can never be identified. Among them, Captain Jakob
Speaker 1: Veldhausen van Zanten, a few hundred meters back from the fireball,
Speaker 1: stands what's left of the PanAm plane. Some of its
Speaker 1: passengers have also been killed already. Others are still alive,
Speaker 1: but many of these survivors will end up being buried.
Speaker 1: They don't have long before fire will begin to consume
Speaker 1: their plane. We'll hear what decides who makes it out
Speaker 1: and who doesn't in the next episode of Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 1: An important source for this episode was Collision on tenna
Speaker 1: Reef for How and Why of the World's worst aviation
Speaker 1: disaster by John Ziamec and Caroline Hopkins. For a full
Speaker 1: list of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford
Speaker 1: dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford
Speaker 1: with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines with support
Speaker 1: from Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music is
Speaker 1: the work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts.
Speaker 1: It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge,
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Jemmy Saunders and Rufus Wright. The show also
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohne, Betal Mollard, John Schnaz, Eric's handler,
Speaker 1: Carrie Brody, and Christina Sullivan. Details is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by
Speaker 1: Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share,
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