R. Doug Wicker — Author

We’re nearing the end of this epic journey. After Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the Carnary Islands, our only remaining stop was Lisbon before heading home after this six-week excursion that I’ve been presenting to you since May of last year. Along the way I’ve shown you Coral Castle, Bucharest, Cairo and the Pyramids, taken you on a Nile River cruise, flown you down to Cape Town, and shown you various sites along the West Coast of Africa. After this series on Tenerife, which will last three weeks, I’ll be moving on to yet another adventure that took place earlier this year. But, for now, let’s concentrate on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands archipelago. We’ll begin with this image of Auditorio de Tenerife:

You may have noticed in today’s article title that our arrival corresponded with a sad anniversary. And it’s a particularly tragic one for air traffic controllers (my past profession) and other aviation professionals. The date for our arrival was 27 March 2025 — precisely 48 years to the day after the worst aviation accident in history. On 27 March 1977 a KLM Boeing 747-206B with 248 people aboard crashed into a Pan Am Boeing 747-121 containing 380 passengers and 16 crew on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport). Nobody aboard the KLM survived. The Pan Am lost 335, and the 61 survivors all experienced injuries. In total, 583 people perished. To this day people still talk about the Tenerife Airport Disaster. Indeed, many books have covered this tragedy over the years. I have personally referenced this disaster many times over the course of my long ATC career to impress upon my trainees the importance in maintaining radio discipline and strictly adhering to approved ATC phraseology and readback procedures.

If you arrive to Santa Cruz via cruise ship, you’ll find it an easy walk from the port into the city center. As you walk into town, here are some of the sights that await you:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)