Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten
Jacob van Zanten Veldhuyzen ( born February 5, 1927 in Lisse, † March 27, 1977 in San Cristóbal de La Laguna ) was an airline pilot and flight instructor of the Dutch airline KLM.
On KLM flight 4805 he was a pilot of the Boeing 747- 206B " Rijn " (air vehicle registration PH -BUF ), which on March 27, 1977 at the start of the Los Rodeos Airport (former IATA code TCI, today TFN) Tenerife with a Boeing 747-121 Pan Am ( " Clipper Victor ", features of N736PA ) collided. Veldhuyzen van Zanten is the main culprit of the air disaster at Tenerife. In the worst disaster to date of civil aviation without terrorist involvement came with Veldhuyzen van Zanten total of 583 people lost their lives.
Curriculum vitae
Jacob van Zanten Veldhuyzen gained his pilot's license on June 21 in 1947 and worked from 1950 for the Dutch airline KLM. He was known within the KLM as a professional, ambitious pilot.
On January 23, 1971, he received the type rating for the Boeing 747 in the same year he flew to Seattle with two of his colleagues to take the first Boeing 747 of KLM in reception. For a display on the KLM flight magazine his image was used as part of a collage, because he was temporarily used as a flight instructor and therefore was the only driver available.
Jacob van Zanten Veldhuyzen came with all the inmates of his machine in the accident died. He had graduated at the time of 11,700 flight hours, including 1,545 on the Boeing 747 Veldhuyzen van Zanten left behind a wife and two children.
Role during the disaster of
Based on current knowledge Veldhuyzen van Zanten was the main culprit for the collision of the two machines. Unplanned between landed on Tenerife, he took the time initially to refuel his plane on the hopelessly overcrowded airport and drove the launch of its Boeing 747 on hold because he really wanted to start before been necessary rest period towards Amsterdam. As he maneuvered his machine to the starting position, he thought he had already received clearance for takeoff and began with the startup process. On the runway, however, nor the Pan Am 747, the crew in the dense fog desperately trying to find the assigned taxiway was. As Veldhuyzen van Zanten the PanAm -747 detected in the fog, he moved his machine steeply. Since the speed is not enough to rise initially, roamed the KLM plane about 20 meters to the rear on the runway, then took off and collided with the chassis and the engines of the PanAm 747th About 200 meters after the collision, the KLM Boeing opened on the runway and exploded, all 248 people on board were killed. Of the 396 inmates of the Pan Am 747 survived only 61
Particularly tragic for the disaster was the fact that the first officer Klaas Meurs its pilots Van Zanten made repeatedly pointed out that the start release has not yet been explicitly granted and confirmed. According to official findings, he was then further warnings, presumably because he did not want to contradict the most experienced pilots of KLM. Klaas Meurs got the type rating for the Boeing 747, with van Zanten acted as auditors until two months before the accident.