Bragg remembers one of the engines’ huge forward turbofans detaching from its shaft and falling forward onto the ground with a thud. The KLM captain yanked the control column as far back as it would go, the KLM 747 reared up in the air, the tail striking the runway and embedding metal in sixty feet of concrete and finally became airborne. The fuselage was engulfed by fire. First officer Meurs, sitting to Van Zanten’s right, reads back the altitudes, headings and fixes, then finishes off with an unusual, somewhat hesitant phrase, backdropped by the sound of accelerating engines. Bragg tells the cracked story of standing there in fog, surrounded by stunned and bleeding survivors, watching his plane burn, when suddenly a taxicab pulls up out of nowhere. Indeed most airplane crashes result not from a single error or failure but from a chain of improbable errors and failures, together with a stroke or two of really bad luck. “Look at him! “We’ll report when we’re clear,” acknowledges Bob Bragg. [11] James Van Zanten, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016); and Johanna Van Zanten, U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line], http://ancestry.com (accessed November 3, 2016). If two or more microphones are clicked at the same instant, the transmissions cancel each other out, delivering a noisy occlusion of static or a high-pitched squeal called a “heterodyne.” Rarely are heterodynes dangerous. 15, Records, 1916-1988 (HMC-0202), Box 4, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK. He and Captain Grubbs were alone in their seats, on a small, fully exposed perch over high above the ground. The magnitude of the accident speaks for itself, but what makes it particularly unforgettable is the startling set of ironies and coincidences that preceded it. Never was this illustrated more calamitously, and almost to the point of absurdity, than on that Sunday afternoon over 30 years ago. The Navy decided it could not depend on Alaska coal to fuel its ships and converted its fleet to oil-burning engines.[6]. Reaching the end, they’ll make a 180-degree turn before taking off in the opposite direction. All 248 passengers and crew aboard KLM flight 4805 were killed, as were 335 on Pan Am flight 1736 (61 survived). Der alarmierte KLM-Flugingenieur richtete dementsprechend folgende Rückfrage an den Prüfkapitän und Flottenchef: Eventually, authorities opened the airport perimeter gates, urging anybody with a vehicle to drive toward the crash scene to help. If passengers recognize him, it’s because his confident, square-jawed visage stares out from KLM’s magazine ads. How evocative and poetically appropriate for the memorial — even if the artists weren’t thinking that way. The most Van Zanten families were found in the USA in 1880. Als er sein Flugzeug in Startposition manövriert hatte, meinte er, die Startfreigabe bereits erhalten zu haben und begann mit dem Startvorgang. I’d known who he was since the sixth grade. Van Zanten releases the brakes. Departing planes will need to taxi down on the runway itself. Really, though, what were the chances of that — a Hollywood script if ever there was one.
Jacob Louis Veldhuyzen van Zanten (5 February 1927 – 27 March 1977) was a Dutch aircraft captain and flight instructor. They were scheduled to land at Las Palmas, on the nearby island of Grand Canary, where many of the passengers were on their way to meet cruise ships. His first officer, Klaas Meurs, takes the radio and receives the ATC route clearance. After a bomb planted by Canary Island separatists exploded in the Las Palmas airport flower shop, they diverted to Los Rodeos, along with several other flights, arriving around 2 p.m. It’s hard for either party to believe KLM is actually moving, but both reach for their microphones to make sure. An unusually short lifespan might indicate that your Van Zanten ancestors lived in harsh conditions. He could see all the way to the tail, two hundred feet behind him. As captain of the KLM Boeing 747, he was involved in the Tenerife airport disaster, the deadliest accident in aviation history. The cost of mining and shipping the coal from Alaska was too high. During the documentary shoot, I traveled with Bob Bragg and the producers to the aircraft storage yards at Mojave, California, where he was interviewed alongside a mothballed 747, describing that incredible leap from the upper-deck. Für eine Anzeige im KLM-Bordmagazin wurde sein Bild als Teil einer Collage verwendet, da er zu diesem Zeitpunkt als Fluglehrer eingesetzt wurde und deshalb als einziger Pilot zur Verfügung stand. Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press. Jedenfalls war für alle Beteiligten folgende Kommunikation (unmittelbar nach der Überlagerungsphase) klar zu hören: To provide the actors with a helpful demo, it was suggested that Bragg and I get inside the mock-up and run through a practice takeoff. Terminal Madness: What Is Airport Security? Henriëtte Veldhuyzen van Zanten-Segers (b. He immigrated to Canada, where he worked as a cook in railroad construction camps. Photographs courtesy of the Longacre family. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Captain Victor Grubbs says nervously. Simply start with a family member and we'll do the searching for you. “Let’s go.” And with that, his mammoth machine begins barreling down the fog-shrouded runway, completely without permission. Van Zanten hears only the word “Okay,” followed by a five-second squeal. Veldhuyzen van Zanten … Note: edited, revised, and expanded by Bruce Parham, November 3, 2016. But the second officer, sitting behind them, does not. A number of passengers, most of them seated in forward portions of the cabin, had made it onto the craft’s left wing, and were standing at the leading edge, about twenty feet off the ground. Trusted information source for millions of people worldwide. Their fourth child, Dorothy, was born in Anchorage on August 7, 1924. When he looked up, the roof was gone. Goddam, that son of a bitch is coming!” He yanks the plane’s steering tiller, turning left as hard as he can, toward the grass at the edge of the runway. Innerhalb der KLM war er als professioneller, ehrgeiziger Pilot bekannt. Somewhere on its nose is the dent from a champagne bottle. Trusted by millions of genealogists since 2003. “Bob is…” He didn’t need to finish that sentence.