Causes of Tenerife

Disaster
The deadliest aviation disaster in the history.
The collision between KLM Flight 4805 and Pan
Am Flight 1736.
There are few causes that lead to this accident.
The causes are such as diversion, bad weather,
pilot error, limitations, miscommunications.

Diversion & Bad weather

All of it started from a diversion from Gran Canaria Airport, where all of the
planes were diverted to Los Rodeos Airport.
Due to bomb explosion and a second threat. The Pan Am flight 1736 and
KLM flight 4805 were diverted to Los Rodeos Airport.
Pan Am were rejected from being holding on flying.
The weather was a reason too as there was a thick fog that formed in the
airport.
Reports from ALPA showed that Pan Am reported that their vision was less
than 500m and got lesser as they were landing.

Limitations
The Los Rodeos airport was too small to fill in all the
redirected planes.
Being at 633m above sea level where the visibility is
merely bad.
Not equipped with ground radar and planes being tracked
via radio only.
Only 1 runway and 1 major taxiway

Miscommunication
The lack of concentration of the controller from the tower
as the airport was already very busy.
The miscommunication where the KLM flight requested to
takeoff to the control room but only hearing the word
takeoff from the control room. The pilot decided to
takeoff.
The controllers misinterpretations to the wrong planes
which was KLM and Pan Am.

Pilot & Human error

Investigators concluded that one of the primary cause for this incident
was because of the Captain of KLM plane who decided to takeoff.
The decision was due to his flight crew who told him that he can
takeoff without getting clear authorization.
Investigation also showed that the captain of KLM Flight was on flight
simulators for six months hence missing real flight times.
The other factors were that the KLM plane delayed takeoff time by
35minutes, added weight of 40 tan from the oil.