page_title: KLM
section_title: Tenerife airport disaster
hierarchical_section_title: KLM / Incidents and accidents / Tenerife airport disaster
caption_attribution_description: English: KLM Boeing 747-206B (PH-BUF) named The Rhine. This aircraft would be destroyed in March 1977 in the Tenerife disaster.
context_page_description: KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V., is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is part of the Air France–KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance. Founded in 1919, KLM is the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name and had 35,488 employees and a fleet of 119 as of 2015. KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to 145 destinations.
context_section_description: The Tenerife disaster, which occurred on 27 March 1977, remains the accident with the highest number of airliner passenger fatalities, as well as the most recent and notable incident involving a KLM aircraft. 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747-200B attempted to take off without clearance, and collided with a taxiing Pan Am Boeing 747-100 at Los Rodeos Airport on the Canary Island of Tenerife, Spain.  No one on the KLM 747 survived (14 crew, 234 passengers were killed) while 61 of the 396 passengers and crew on the Pan Am aircraft survived. Pilot error from the KLM aircraft was the primary cause. Owing to a communication misunderstanding, the KLM captain thought he had clearance for takeoff. Another cause was dense fog, meaning the KLM flight crew was unable to see the Pan Am aircraft on the runway until immediately prior to the collision. The accident had a lasting influence on the industry, particularly in the area of communication. An increased emphasis was placed on using standardized phraseology in air traffic control (ATC) communication by both controllers and pilots alike, thereby reducing the chance for misunderstandings. As part of these changes, the word "takeoff" was removed from general usage, and is only spoken by ATC when clearing an aircraft to take off.
caption: At the time of the accident, the Boeing 747 nicknamed Rhine was only six years old.
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