# Tenerife Disaster -- 40 Years Later **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 27, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146 "2017-03-27T16:24:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/21 "2017-03-27T21:43:24Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The Tokyo firebombing of March 9-10 1945 actually killed more people than either of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The March 9-10 bombing is believed to have killed over 100,000 people, and perhaps as many as 200,000 (many bodies were completely obliterated, making an exact count impossible). I was going to wander off into the Tokyo, Berlin and Dresden firebombings but it wasn’t really all that important to the point - that “incident” is extremely vague. I, too, would put Tenerife and 9/11 in separate categories. And Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and Tokyo/Berlin. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/22 "2017-03-27T22:00:10Z")
What bugs me is that incidents like this, like the Titanic, like the Apollo 1 fire, like the Challenger, all are the kickstarters for long-overdue improvements in policies, procedures or design that lead to greater safety. I hate that it takes such a loss of life to get people to do things that they should have always been doing. Sometimes I dream of going back in time, warn the Titanic, advise the ATC folk on Tenerife, stop the large loss of life. And yet, I fear that if I were successful, if these incidents hadn’t happened, that things would have stayed the way they were, and some other disaster would have happened, maybe a larger one. Maybe these things are necessary for human nature to shake off its complacency? Nothing else can get through? I wish it were not so. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2017, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/23 "2017-03-27T23:17:26Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > What bugs me is that incidents like this, like the Titanic, like the Apollo 1 fire, like the Challenger, all are the kickstarters for long-overdue improvements in policies, procedures or design that lead to greater safety. I hate that it takes such a loss of life to get people to do things that they should have always been doing. > > Sometimes I dream of going back in time, warn the Titanic, advise the ATC folk on Tenerife, stop the large loss of life. And yet, I fear that if I were successful, if these incidents hadn’t happened, that things would have stayed the way they were, and some other disaster would have happened, maybe a larger one. Maybe these things are necessary for human nature to shake off its complacency? Nothing else can get through? I wish it were not so. I read a book once in which a guy went back in time to try and save the Titanic. He and an accomplice distracted part of the crew(long story) and slightly turned the course of the ship. Turned out **that** steered the ship towards the berg that damaged it, and if they’d left well enough alone the Titanic would not have struck the berg and sunk. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/24 "2017-03-28T00:26:13Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I read a book once in which a guy went back in time to try and save the Titanic. He and an accomplice distracted part of the crew(long story) and slightly turned the course of the ship. Turned out **that** steered the ship towards the berg that damaged it, and if they’d left well enough alone the Titanic would not have struck the berg and sunk. A pretty good case has been made that if Titanic had hit the berg square on, it would have destroyed the front quarter of the ship but not sunk it. It was the last minute attempt to clear and the long tear in the hull that overwhelmed the floatation. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/25 "2017-03-28T03:10:47Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Still. 583 dead. Expensive lessons. Bah! That many people die every half-hour, just from starvation, not all causes of death. Most of them children. And there is enough food produced in the world to provide every person enough food to live. But still they die. Expensive lesson, not yet learned. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/26 "2017-03-28T04:40:10Z")
Many years later, I worked with a woman whose first husband was severely burned in a freak accident (he died a few days later) and he was taken to a burn unit where most of the patients were from that crash and had been medevaced to this city. I don’t remember where it was except that it was somewhere in the continental United States. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/27 "2017-03-28T05:06:02Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I’m not a pilot, but CRM has been a fascinating subject for me. With the clarity of hindsight, it’s bizarre to think that anyone ever believed the best way to manage a cockpit was for all the subordinates to shut up and do as they’re told, and that it was regarded as rude or insubordinate to express safety concerns about the PIC’s decisions/actions. The thing about autocratic systems is that they are absolutely great right up until they aren’t. Putting one person in charge works very well, 99% of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/28 "2017-03-28T05:49:07Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > What bugs me is that incidents like this, like the Titanic, like the Apollo 1 fire, like the Challenger, all are the kickstarters for long-overdue improvements in policies, procedures or design that lead to greater safety. I hate that it takes such a loss of life to get people to do things that they should have always been doing. You do not know, with absolute certainty, that ‘that’s what they should always have been doing’, until _ **after** _ the failure that shows this to be the case. If the failure never occurs and is never likely to occur, then its implemented preventative measure(s) is money poorly spent. This, unfortunately and tragically, is the nature of how things are. To be preventative of all possible failures would be cost prohibitive. Another rationale for this is [the drawing of a cowboy after an OSHA inspection](https://www.google.com/search?q=cowboy+after+osha&client=safari&hl=en-us&prmd=isnv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi---T4vvjSAhVXzmMKHe0mAqYQ_AUIBygB&biw=1024&bih=672#imgrc=GQwR1_3gVpKiqM:). ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/29 "2017-03-28T05:54:35Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > The thing about autocratic systems is that they are absolutely great right up until they aren’t. Putting one person in charge works very well, 99% of the time. True. And a modern airline cockpit is NOT a democracy. It is an autocracy where the person in charge is expected to make the best use of those around him/her in order to come to a most correct decision. It works well provided the game is played properly by all parties. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/30 "2017-03-28T07:22:00Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I’m not a pilot, but CRM has been a fascinating subject for me. With the clarity of hindsight, it’s bizarre to think that anyone ever believed the best way to manage a cockpit was for all the subordinates to shut up and do as they’re told, and that it was regarded as rude or insubordinate to express safety concerns about the PIC’s decisions/actions. > [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > It’s still that way in some airline cultures And in quite a few other types of companies. I’ve seen a bunch of people fired because they decided that they knew better than established protocols, and several of their subordinates get saved because it was on record that they’d dared protest. “Because I say so” managers and corporations are sadly quite common; half my current team is banned from meetings with our project lead because we dared speak up :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/31 "2017-03-28T11:01:05Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > And in quite a few other types of companies. I’ve seen a bunch of people fired because they decided that they knew better than established protocols, and several of their subordinates get saved because it was on record that they’d dared protest. “Because I say so” managers and corporations are sadly quite common; half my current team is banned from meetings with our project lead because we dared speak up :rolleyes: Sadly this is still true. I work as a consultant and when speaking to potential clients I try to gauge to what degree that sort of culture exists and will and have turned down work because of it. It is, in my professional opinion, a fucking nightmare to navigate and is often why they are calling external people in anyway as they just won’t trust their own people to have a say and exercise their own judgement. Having subordinates that feel free to offer dissenting opinion is a sign of a healthy workplace. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/32 "2017-03-28T11:25:55Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Having subordinates that feel free to offer dissenting opinion is a sign of a healthy workplace. Most definitely! Sadly, at my last company, and I was there 20 years, the once-healthy workplace became caustic. People were afraid to offer dissenting opinions, and it was fast becoming a target-rich environment rife with opportunities to dissent, because they’d get their heads chopped off. Frequently we would say, The Emperor has no clothes, but nobody wants to tell him. With modern CRM, a crew member can speak up about a problem they see, and the pilot in command should not view that as dissent, per se, but as information to be processed and acted on accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/33 "2017-03-28T12:19:17Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > [CRM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management) didn’t just get better; it _didn’t exist_ as a concept prior to Tenerife. > > I’m not a pilot, but CRM has been a fascinating subject for me. With the clarity of hindsight, it’s bizarre to think that anyone ever believed the best way to manage a cockpit was for all the subordinates to shut up and do as they’re told, and that it was regarded as rude or insubordinate to express safety concerns about the PIC’s decisions/actions. Similarly bizarre to think that attitude was common in the operating room, but [things have changed.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22462374) ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/34 "2017-03-28T14:17:07Z")
I guess this is important for jobs that have consequences however in my job I just keep my mouth shut and do what I’m told. I want to be able to keep my job. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/35 "2017-03-28T14:40:03Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Similarly bizarre to think that attitude was common in the operating room, but [things have changed.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22462374) CRM saves lives in any safety-critical situation, whether it’s surgery, firefighting, or flying a plane. But it also improves _any_ situation where you’ve got a team of people tasked with making the best decisions based on all available information, whether it’s a group of employees trying to conduct business, or a husband and wife trying to figure out how to deal with a more personal situation. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/36 "2017-03-28T14:51:40Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > (CRM)… also improves _any_ situation where you’ve got a team of people tasked with making the best decisions based on all available information, whether it’s a group of employees trying to conduct business, or a husband and wife trying to figure out how to deal with a more personal situation. Agree wholeheartedly. I tried to use this approach when in charge in the Marines, in business management, and I highly prefer being part of an organization (e.g., my boss) that follows CRM tenets. No single person can see as much as all of his/her staff. But ultimately it is the boss’s call. [Wikipedia has a basic page on CRM](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management). ---
**Author:** ![bizerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@bizerta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizerta)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/37 "2017-03-29T17:02:16Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > … and if they’d left well enough alone the Titanic would not have struck the berg and sunk. In 1965, two planes collided over Carmel, NY. When each emerged from clouds, one (or both) thought they were on a collision course and took evasive action. They actually were correctly separated by 1000 vertical feet. After colliding, the Lockheed pancaked into a NY hill, and the 707 limped into JFK with half of one wing missing. Amazingly there were only four fatalities, one of whom was the CO who went back into the Connie to attempt a rescue. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/38 "2017-03-29T17:12:10Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > Quoting myself to correct myself (or qualify myself) – deadliest aviation incidents to this date were the two flights that were flown into the World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2 on 9/11/2001. Including the ground casualties caused by the collapses, each of those flights outnumber Tenerife by 2-to-1 or more. But those are also substantively different than the pure chain of accidents that led to Tenerife. > > This self-hijack is now ended, and we return you to your regularly scheduled MPSIMS thread. One bit that is not mentioned often: The first item that precipitated the incident was also related to terrorism. In the original destination a terrorist planted a bomb in the airport. Causing the planes to divert to Tenerife. AFAIK no one was ever arrested for that bomb incident. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/39 "2017-03-29T19:36:07Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > One bit that is not mentioned often: The first item that precipitated the incident was also related to terrorism. In the original destination a terrorist planted a bomb in the airport. Causing the planes to divert to Tenerife. > > AFAIK no one was ever arrested for that bomb incident. No, although Antonio Cubillo, then exiled in Algiers and leader of the terrorist group MPAIAC, is almost certainly the person who was responsible for ordering the bombing of Gando airport that precipitated the whole thing. The problem is that in 1978 the Spanish secret services tried to assassinate him in Algiers in a rather murky operation which did not seem to be particularly kosher from a legal point of view. The assassination was botched and he was left crippled. Later he came back to Spain, and in 2003 the Supreme Court ordered the Spanish government to pay him €150,000 as damages for an act of state terrorism (attempted extra-judicial killing). The whole thing was rather embarrassing, and I imagine that that is why he was never officially charged with anything. FWIW, the MPAIAC renounced violence in 1979 and tried their hand at becoming a “normal” political party supporting Canarias independence through peaceful means. They failed miserably and by 1991 the whole movement was all but dead. Antonio Cubillo died in 2012 at the age of 82, refusing to the last to accept any kind of responsibility for the Los Rodeos air disaster and always saying that there was no relationship whatsoever between the bomb at Gando and the later airplane collision in Tenerife. I guess that this is what it takes for certain people to be able to sleep at night. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146/40 "2017-03-29T20:01:45Z")
Well, considering that the same kind of people will do things such as consider a months-old baby an appropriate target or report the movements of their closest relatives (husband, children, in-laws) to their organization… yeah, I’d say that it’s simply not possible to be a terrorist and be someone who reasons normally. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tenerife-disaster-40-years-later/783146.md?page=3)