The disasters below include accidents, a bombing and military shootdowns; they are not all crashes in the same sense. They are arranged from fewer to more deaths so the final entry is the deadliest, counting victims on the ground where applicable.
Fatality figures can vary slightly between historical accounts, particularly when ground victims are included. The descriptions distinguish what happened from what investigators or authorities concluded, and treat those affected with respect.
1Tenerife airport disaster
On 27 March 1977, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736 collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport, now Tenerife North Airport, in the Canary Islands. Thick fog, runway congestion and communication misunderstandings were among the factors examined afterward.
A total of 583 people died: everyone aboard the KLM aircraft and most of those on the Pan Am aircraft. Sixty-one people aboard the Pan Am flight survived. The collision remains the deadliest accident in aviation history.
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