The Tenerife collision took place on March 27, 1977, at 17:06:56 local time (also UTC), when two Boeing 747 airliners collided at Los Rodeos (TCI) on the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, killing 583 people. The accident has the highest number of fatalities (excluding ground fatalities) of any single accident in aviation history.It occurred as a result of a synchronicity of a chain of events, any one of which having not transpired would have prevented the accident. The aircraft involved were Pan American World Airways Flight 1736, named Clipper Victor, under the command of Captain Victor Grubbs, and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Flight 4805, named Rijn (Rhine River), under the command of Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten. KLM 4805, taking off on the only runway of the airport, crashed into the Pan Am aircraft which was taxiing in the opposite direction on the same runway. Tenerife North Airport (TFN) (then called Los Rodeo