Author: Peter

Cooper, John

Bragg and Cooper — Pan Am Clipper, July 1977

John Cooper, 53, observer in a cockpit jumpseat, passed away in 1998. He was a native of Cheshire, England. He had worked for Pan Am since 1959 or 1960. In 1977 he lived in Frimley, Surrey, England. ”As for John Cooper he was a senior maintenace supervisor sent to Las Palmas to take care of routine maintenance of the aircraft during the normal transit stop there. After the aircraft would leave he would go back to London. John was sitting in the cockpit in the second jumpseat at the time of the accident. Fortunately he had his shoulder harness on because he wound up hanging upside down in the first class compartment about four feet off the floor. How he actually got out I can’t recall at this time. He sustained minor injuries and returned to London several days later. The company Doctor told him to take a few weeks off to relax and unwind. While he was off he was working on his boat and fell off a ladder and dislocated his shoulder. He told me he would have been better off going back to work.” (Letter from George Warns, dated 21 March 1990) He was not injured in the Tenerife jumbo jet crash and did not require hospitalization; his left ear was slightly injured, however. He was taken to Hotel Mencey after the disaster. There is a chance he was the John Percival Cooper born 14 September 1923 who passed away in August 1998 at Poole, Dorset, England. The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Warns, George Walter

George Warns — Pan Am Clipper, July 1977

George W. Warns,. He was the flight engineer on the Pan Am jumbojet and was 46 years of age at the time of the Tenerife collision at Los Rodeos Airport. His total flying time as a flight engineer was 15,210 hours and he held a Turbojet rating certificate. ”…’We finally located the taxiway we were to exit the runway and were turning into it when we noticed flickering lights approaching us. Have you ever noticed what a motorcycle headlight looks like when it is approaching you at night? This was the same so we realized that the lights were coming toward us. The captain increased the power to try to get out of the way but a 747 does not respond instantaneously and there is a slight lag….
We all thought that our lives…were about to come to an end. After the initial contact I looked back and all I could see was sky and a lot of black smoke. How I got out of my seat I can’t recall but I guess that is strictly jerk reaction after doing it automatically for 22 years. The electrical panel to the right of the engineer’s panel blew up in my face with a blinding white light. I then looked where the emergency exit door was but it was gone. I looked down at the ground and all I could see was debris and fire. I yelled to the rest of the crew to try the other side because there was no way out on that side. I then looked down and saw 2 Blue seats in the first class compartment so I jumped down. There were several people standing were (sic) the Main entrance door used to be so I told them to get out of the plane. About that time the nose must have collapsed and I was thrown to the ground. I landed on the partially inflated escape slide but it was extremely hot causing burns to both of my arms and face because they were uncovered. I struggled free and the (sic) proceeded to get as far away from the plane as possible but on the way I picked up passengers and told them to run as far as they could go. After helping all of the people in my area into ambulances the Capt., myself and some passengers were taken to the hospital for treatment. After being treated I went to a room in the maternity ward because that was the only space available. I was fortunate enough to place a telephone call home to my wife to tell her I was alive.” (Letter from George Warns, dated 21 March 1990) The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Murillo Rivas, Juan Antonio

Juan Antonio Murillo Rivas, 42. He was described as a Pan Am supervisor. He was seated in a cockpit jumpseat and got out uninjured.
‘When I opened my eyes, the ceiling had disappeared, and part of the floor as well. The KLM aircraft had passed just above my head. The captain turned around and told us three who remained in the cockpit, because the mechanic, John Cooper, had fallen throug the hole and was hanging upside down below, to jump! Jump! I threw myself out head first and in mid-air I managed to turn around and fell feet first in the grass. They (i. e. the pilots) were injured because they tried to jump to the ground directly. Cooper and I started to collect people from the aircraft and found three or four until the fire spread and we had to leave.’
His name is Juan Antonio Murillo, 82 years of age….
‘I was a delegate for charter operations in southern Europe and northern Africa…” (El Mundo, 27 March 2017; the translation from Spanish is mine). The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Kelly, Mrs. Dorothy

Dorothy Kelly, purser. ”Dorothy Kelly, a purser in the first-class section, also managed to get out. ‘I saw someone on the ground,’ she recalled. ‘It was the captain. He was kneeling and kept mumbling that he couldn’t get up, so I reached under his arms and helped him off.” (Newsweek, 11 April 1977)
”A Pan American stewardess who survived the worst airline disaster in history says crew members had to fight with some passengers to keep them from going back into the exploding plane to help others. ‘There were horrible screams inside the cabin,’ said 36-year-old Dorothy Kelly. There were people being severely burned and families trying to get back into the plane to help them. Metal was flying in the air around us as the plane exploded.’ Mrs. Kelly, of Fitzwilliam, N. H., was one of six survivors, including four stewardesses, who returned here last night following Sunday’s disaster at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands in which 577 died. The stewardesses were rushed past waiting reporters, but Mrs. Kelly held a brief news conference on her recollections…
Her arm in a cast, her face scratched and bruised and her eyes showing the strain of the tragedy, Mrs. Kelly said her first impression after the Pan Am plane and the KLM jet collided on the runway was ‘a lot of wind, a lot of noise. Things were flying all over the place,’ she said. ‘I could see the sky above.’ As the plane burst into flames, she said, some passengers were blown out and others jumped. ‘On the right side,’ directly behind me, she recalled, ‘the girl I had just looked at prior to the crash disappeared. I later learned that she got out without a scratch.’ Mrs. Kelly said she felt the floor giving way under her. ‘It was about a 20-foot jump into ragged metal below,’ she said, ‘and my shoes were gone….I managed to get down and out of the exploding aircraft.” (The Corpus Christie Caller-Times, 1 April 1977, p. 2)
”In the cabin, Purser Kelly was stood near an emergency exit at the front of the aircraft. ‘I was standing at 1R, the forward right door, drinking a coffee Miguel (Torrech) had given me and Carla (Johnson) was standing a few feet away. All of a sudden things were not right,’ she later said. ‘Things were flying around the airplane and everything moved in slow motion. Nothing was like it had been moments before. I wasn’t in a position where I could see out of the plane and I thought a bomb may have exploded…” (confessionsofatrolleydolly.com) The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Johnson, Miss Carla J.

Carla J. Johnson, stewardess, 28. ”Stewardess Carla Johnson lived through explosion after explosion. She remembered ‘climbing and falling and climbing and falling until suddenly there was an opening and I jumped out.’ When she hit the ground, Johnson ran for her life. ‘I kept telling people to move away from the plane,’ she said. Many were just standing there, stunned.’ In an interview with purser Kelly, it is revealed that Miss Johnson was standing (or sitting?) near 1R (the first door on the right hand side of the aircraft) in the first class compartment of the jumbo jet. The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Grubbs, Captain Victor Franklin

Victor Grubbs — Pan Am Clipper, July 1977

Victor Franklin Grubbs, captain. He had been born 18 May 1920 at Claxton, Georgia, the son of Arthur and Mrs. Grubbs. He was subsequently 56 years of age at the time of the Tenerife jumbo jet collision at Los Rodeos Airport, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. His total flying experience was 21,043 hours and he was certified to fly aircraft of the types Boeing 707 and Boeing 747. ”Grubbs said there was limited visibility across the fogshrouded runway as they waited for several planes to take off before them. He said the two planes collided after what ‘seemed like about a half a second’ from the time he spotted the approaching KLM airliner. ‘At that point the survival instinct took over and it was a miracle that anybody got out alive,’ he said. A series of explosions were followed by ‘fires and black, black smoke everywhere,’ Grubbs said. Somehow, he said, he got out an escape ramp, walked away and then turned to see the explosions.” (The Montana Standard, 31 March 1977, p. 18) He was taken to hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and was released on or about 28 April. The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Donovan, Miss Suzanne Carol

Suzanne Carol Donovan, stewardess, 28. ‘When the planes collided, Joan was standing by the second door on the port side, which I guess is directly behind first class section because those are the people she helped reach safety, ‘’ Mrs. Jackson said. On impact, Joan raced to her station at a door on the opposite side of the plane but turned back when she saw a fiery inferno raging outside, blocking the exit route. But when she turned back, the door which had been there seconds earlier had gone, obliterated by the impact of the collision …Amidst the screams, smoke and intense heat from the fire exploding around the wreckage, Miss Jackson found herself miraculously unharmed, and quickly began assisting passengers through the rubble to safety. The front section of the plane, torn loose from the mangled midships, collapsed to within five feet of the ground, making the jump to the runway less hazardous than it might have been….After helping as many survivors as possible, Miss Jackson and fellow stewardess and roommate Suzanne Donovan of Pennsylvania jumped to the ground and ran as fast as they could….’ (Star-News, Pasadena, March 30, 1977) The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Bragg, Robert L.

Robert Lee Bragg, first officer. He had been born 14 September 1937 (in Alabama). He was 39 years of age at the time of the jumbo jet crash at Tenerife. His total flying experience was 10,800 hours and he was certified to fly aircraft of the types Boeing 707 and 747. ”Bragg said there were three explosions aboard his jet and the wreckage looked as if ‘somebody had taken a cleaver and shorn off” the back of the plane from the cockpit. Because the normal means of exit were destroyed, Bragg said he jumped the 32 feet from the cockpit to the ground. He said the captain, Victor Grubbs, was not so lucky and fell into the first class section where the floor buckled, throwing him into flames.” (Santa Cruz Sentinel, 7 April 1977, p. 35) He escaped the crash with a broken ankle.
”Pan Am copilot Robert Bragg, who survived history’s worst air disaster, says the KLM jumbo jet which struck his jetliner never had permission to take off from the Canary Islands. Bragg, 39, of Boothbay Harbor, told a news conference Wednesday the air traffic controller gave the KLM plane clearance to go from Tenerife to Las Palmas, but did not give it clearance to take off. Bragg said the tower then asked the Pan Am jumbo jet: ‘Are you off the runway?’
‘Negative, we are still on the runway,’ Bragg quoted himself as saying. ‘I thought the (KLM) plane was still parked, then I saw the lights moving and then I saw the plane,’ the survivor said. Bragg said his captain shouted, ‘Get off, get off,’ and ordered full take off power, at the same time turning the plane 30 degrees. The pilot’s action prevented a head-on collision, he said. ‘The KLM pilot pulled its nose up in an effort to get over us,’ he said. ‘I closed my eyes and ducked, hoping he would clear us and then he hit.’ Bragg, who broke his ankle jumping 32 feet from the cockpit to the ground after the collision, was on crutches when he talked with reporters Wednesday.” (Biddoford-Saco Journal, 7 April 1977, p. 2) The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Jackson, Miss Joan Kathleen

Joan Kathleen Jackson, stewardess, 28: ‘..When the planes collided, Joan was standing by the second door on the port side, which I guess is directly behind first class section because those are the people she helped reach safety, ‘’ Mrs. Jackson said. On impact, Joan raced to her station at a door on the opposite side of the plane but turned back when she saw a fiery inferno raging outside, blocking the exit route. But when she turned back, the door which had been there seconds earlier had gone, obliterated by the impact of the collision …Amidst the screams, smoke and intense heat from the fire exploding around the wreckage, Miss Jackson found herself miraculously unharmed, and quickly began assisting passengers through the rubble to safety. The front section of the plane, torn loose from the mangled midships, collapsed to within five feet of the ground, making the jump to the runway less hazardous than it might have been….After helping as many survivors as possible, Miss Jackson and fellow stewardess and roommate Suzanne Donovan of Pennsylvania jumped to the ground and ran as fast as they could….’ (Star-News, Pasadena, March 30, 1977) The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
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Torrech Pere (Pérez), Miguel Ángel

Miguel Angel Torrech Pere was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico 23 December 1945 and graduated from the College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts in Mayaguez, in 1971. Torrech joined Pan Am in February 1973. He is survived by his mother, Emilia Torrech of Rio Pedras, Puerto Rico, and twin brother, a steward for Trans World Airlines. Shortly before the crash occurred, he had served purser Dorothy Kelly, a survivor, a cup of coffee. He then returned to his station in the upstairs first class lounge, which was destroyed in the collision. He was buried at Puerto Rico National Cemetery, Bayamon, Puerto Rico. The material presented on this page has been researched by Peter Engberg-Klarström. Copyright 2017 Peter Engberg-Klarström.
Feel free to use the research, but please refer to my research if used in publications or if published or posted on other pages on the Internet