Collision at Los Rodeos Airport
The tragedy at Los Rodeos Airport (also known as the Clash in Tenerife) took first place among the largest air crashes. The cause of the disaster lies in such a trifle as a banal language barrier. KLM and Pan American airlines flew out to make an intermediate landing in Gran Canaria, and then continue flights to Amsterdam and Los Angeles, but the control teams misunderstood due to the Spanish accent in one of the controllers’ English. As a result, 583 people died: 248 on board the Dutch side of the KLM company and 335 from the Pan American liner. Nevertheless, 61 people from the American side still managed to survive the disaster, which became the most tragic in the history of civil aviation (if you do not take into account the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a result of which 1692 people died and are listed as missing).
