Pilot's chilling mistake causing deaths of 146 Brits

Daily Record

29-04-2025

Tenerife North Airport , once known as Los Rodeos Airport, is one of the island's two international airports and is located 2,000 ft above sea level, making it a particularly tough airport to fly in and out from. The weather conditions often creates poor visibility caused by the winds blowing up off the sea, reports the Mirror . The most terrifying example of how deadly these conditions can be came on March 27, 1977, when two planes collided on the runway, partly due to poor visibility. The crash remains the worst in aviation history, with 583 lives lost. However, another disaster hit the island just three years later - involving a British jet. In the 1970s and 80s, Dan-Air had become the UK's largest independent airline in the United Kingdom. On 9.20am on April 25, 1980, the popular airline's Flight 1008 departed Manchester Airport for Tenerife. On board were mostly British tourists looking to escape the UK for the sunny beaches and stunning landscapes of the Canary Islands. The flight was crewed by three experienced pilots, Captain Arthur Whelan, 50, First Officer Michael Firth, 33, and Flight Engineer Raymond Carey, 33, plus five cabin crew, bringing the total number of occupants to 146. For most of the three-hour flight, everything went to plan, until the descent at 1pm local time. Winds normally blow in from the Atlantic to the west, but on this day they were coming from the opposite direction, meaning that the opposite runway was in use - Runway 12. Controller Justo Camin, 34, was unable to use the normal descent procedure because another aircraft was ahead, also lining up for Runway 12 and the two planes were getting dangerously close to colliding mid-air. With no radar to guide him, Camin had to manage traffic using set instructions, instructing each aircraft in turn to fly along a predetermined route. At 1.18pm, Camin decided to put the Dan-Air flight into a holding pattern to give the other plane time to land safely. However, Runway 12 had no publishing holding patten - so Camin improvised. He told the crew to enter a left-hand holding pattern and stay in it, circling, until the other aircraft had cleared. When First Officer Firth radioed in their position, Camin replied: "Roger, the er, standard holding pattern overhead Foxtrot Papa is inbound heading one five zero, turn to the left, call you back shortly." Captain Whelan simply answered: "Roger" - without repeating the instructions back. Had he done so, the disaster might have been avoided. Camin had said "turn to the left," when he actually meant "turns to the left", a small but crucial mistake that confused the crew. The captain was now trying to follow a holding pattern that didn't exist on any chart and misread the order as a single turn to the left onto heading 150. That one turn sent them into mountainous terrain where the minimum safe altitude was 14,500ft - nearly triple their current height. At one minute and six seconds before the crash , one of the pilots is heard saying, " Bloody strange hold, isn't it?" adding, " It doesn't parallel with the runway or anything." The cockpit audio shows the crew were uneasy, but no one radioed air traffic control to double check. Controller Camin, thinking the jet was safely circling out at sea, told them to descend another 1,000ft. He didn't realise they were heading straight for the hills. Captain Whelan queried Camin's instruction with his co pilot in the cockpit. "I don't like that." "They want us to keep going more round, don't they?" said his co-pilot. At this point, the automatic ground alarm was heard on the cockpit "pull up, pull up!" In a desperate attempt to avoid the mountain, Captain Whelan flipped out of his left turn into a steep right turn. The captain believed that he could avoid the terrain by turning right. Co-pilot Firth, looking at the chart realised, it was the wrong course of action and made other suggestions to the captain. "Lets get out of here," Flight Engineer Carey is heard saying on the CVR. Captain Whelan continued to steer the plane steeply to the right, losing 300 feet of altitude in the process. Spanish investigators later said that one desperate turn wrecked any hope of escape. Flight Engineer Carey was heard warning: 'Bank angle, bank angle!' And then the CVR cut out. Dan-Air flight 1008 slammed headlong into the side of La Esperanza at an altitude of 5,450 feet, just 92 feet (28 meters) below the summit. The impact obliterated the plane. Debris scattered across the slopes, and the tail section was hurled into a ravine before shattering. Small fires erupted from the pulverized wreckage and for the second time in just over three years, the dreaded crash alarm sounded at Tenerife North Airport . Rescuers reached the site within hours, but the scene was devastating. No one had survived. Not a single intact body was found. Some victims were never even identified. Spain admitted the controller had made a mistake - but blamed the British crew entirely. UK investigators hit back, saying Camin should've realised sooner there was a conflict and used a published holding pattern. British investigators added he should not have issued an unpublished and untried holding pattern but they accepted that the Dan Air crew did not query the controller's instructions or request clarification. They also criticized Camin's decision to clear flight 1008 to descend to 5,000 feet. Had the holding pattern been designed according to official regulations, the minimum altitude should have been 7,000 feet. After receiving a ground proximity warning, the captain - who could not see in the fog and cloud - decided to conduct a turn to the right, which actually took them straight into the side of the mountain. What is not in dispute, however is that the omission of a single letter in a word set off the chain of events that ultimately led to the crash . If the controller had said "turns" and not "turn" the crash would never have happened. The crash findings prompted a renewed focus on clear, standardized procedures for all flight operations, including holding patterns. It also highlighted the need for clear communication between air traffic controllers and pilots - and ensuring pilots repeat Air Traffic Control instructions so there is no room for misunderstandings. Dan Air was able to recover from the accident and continued flying until 1992 when it was taken over by British Airways. Despite being the largest loss of life on a British airliner , on its 45th anniversary, Dan Air Flight 1008 is not as well remembered as it should be - and the 146 people who lost their lives that fateful day.