Two jumbo jets collided on one foggy runway and killed 583 people
On 27 March 1977 a bomb threat diverted two Boeing 747s to Tenerife's small Los Rodeos airport, crowding its single runway in thick fog. Overlapping radio transmissions and a misunderstood instruction led the KLM jet to begin its takeoff roll while the Pan Am 747 was still taxiing on the same runway ahead of it. The collision killed 583 people and remains, decades later, the deadliest accident in aviation history.
— Jon Ziomek, Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster — 2018
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