About the identifying of the victims
Here we tell the story about how the victims of the Tenerife
crash were identified.
The crash at Tenerife takes place on Sunday 27th March at 5
pm. A couple of hours later an almost empty Boeing 747 departs from Amsterdam
Schiphol to pick up the travelers who were run ashore at Las Palmas. Among those
onboard are members of the RIT (the Dutch Emergency Identification Staff).
On Monday morning at 4 o’ clock the plane touches down at the
airport of Las Palmas. The team then travels on to Los Rodeos by helicopter.
When they arrive at Tenerife they smell burning flesh which they describe as
being ‘terrible’. The Spanish Military are busy with recovering the bodies of
the dead, and also trying to separate the Dutch people from the American.
It’s a very tragic sight; more than 550 dead bodies in one
hangar. There is no description for it, it’s terrible. The Dutch people ask
themselves: ‘What do we do?’, ‘What can we do?’.
They ask permission to identify their victims; they receive
this at 6.30 in the morning. All the members of the staff are horrified by what
they see - most of the bodies are on makeshift beds . On some beds still appears
the infusion apparatus. It did not help, it could not help.
The American authorities arrive too late, and are refused
permission to try to identify their victims. The Spanish authorities decree that
the American equipment is inadequate, so they have to help the Spanish with
embalming the bodies of the American victims. Identification of the bodies
cannot be done until they return to America, so a lot of vital information will
The identification of dead people has two phases. The first
is the ‘post mortem’ and the second is the ‘ante mortem’. In the post mortem
phase, researchers study the whole body of the person, and they look at objects
found in the vicinity of the victim. All this information will be included in
the ‘post mortem dossier’. They don’t draw conclusions at this time. The post
mortem is carried out at the site of the accident, where as the ante mortem is
done in the victim’s home country.
After their breakfast on Monday morning, the Dutch people
start their work, but where do they start when they are faced with so many dead
people, many of them badly burned? The Dutch team work in four groups, each
having two members: a Researcher and a Policeman.
Producing a post mortem dossier of 248 people is a very large
and difficult task, and on top of this, they now don’t have many hours remaining
in which to finish their work. This is because Spanish law dictates that all
bodies of victims must be placed in coffins within 48 hours from the time of the
crash. This means the teams must finish their work by Tuesday evening.
In identifying victims, the set of teeth provides the most
Gradually, the Dutch teams realise they won’t be able to
finish their work within the time limit imposed by Spanish Law, and they know
all too well that the Spanish are unlikely to be flexible in this regard. By
Monday night they are very tired, and they catch some sleep, but it’s not for
long. After just four hours they have to wake up and continue. The Dutch sleep
in a hotel near the airport, while some Spanish military personnel sleep among
the dead bodies.
On Tuesday evening the time limit expires, and there are
still 60 bodies to do. Because there’s not enough material to embalm the bodies,
the Dutch teams get more time to write up a post mortem dossier for each victim.
While dinner is being served, four dentists arrive from the Netherlands to help.
The other researchers are very tired, having worked for 40 hours with just 4
hours rest. However, they know how important their work is, and how relieved the
families of the victims will be to hear that their victim has been identified.
Nine hours after the limit expired, they have finished their
work. For all 248 Dutch victims there is a post mortem dossier.
Once the bodies are embalmed, they go firstly by truck to the
harbor, then by boat to Las Palmas, and finally by plane to Amsterdam on DC-8
and DC-9 aircraft. When the planes arrive at Schiphol on Friday morning, they
immediately taxi to hangar 9.
Researchers in the Netherlands have already started to make
an ‘ante mortem dossier’. In most cases, the ante mortem starts at the same time
as the post mortem. In the ante mortem phase, the researcher will collect all
kind of information about the victims. When both dossiers are completed, they
compare the post mortem dossier with the ante mortem, and from this they hope to
get an answer to the question: ‘Who was this person?’
At this stage they are also restricted by a time limit. They
may carry out research on a dead body for up to a week after the embalming, so
they have to finish the work by Tuesday evening.
This work is also very difficult, ‘Especially when you have a
child or baby on your research table.’ (Researcher)
The researchers take a lot of X-ray photographs, especially
of the teeth. After that, they compare these photos with the photos taken by the
passenger’s dentist during one of their visits before the accident. It’s one of
the most reliable ways to get information about the identify of a person from a
By Saturday morning, almost 100 people are working on
identifying the victims, and by Tuesday evening they have the identities of 137
people. The researchers ask the families whether they want to look at the
property of the victims, and also at the postmortem dossier, to see if they
recognise anything. By this method, they confirm the identity of 36 more
In the following weeks, they work to identify the remaining
75 victims. In total, they manage to identify 204 victims, 82 percent of the
death toll, which is extremely high.
There were 335 American victims. As mentioned earlier, the
Americans didn’t receive permission to identify their dead bodies at Los Rodeos,
so a lot of vital information was lost. Aside from this, there was another
difficulty. A lot of the passengers from the Pan-Am plane we’re around 70 years
old. A lot of them were wearing dentures instead of their original set of teeth,
and at Los Rodeos the dentures were separated from the bodies. The U.S. Air
Force responded to a request from Pan-Am officials for help, and finally they
managed to identify 218 victims, 65 percent of the total toll.
All the researchers did an almost impossible job at Tenerife,
but they can take pride in their work, and in the fact that the families felt
some closure when their victims had been identified. Let us never forget this
part of the Tenerife story, and what the researchers did, not for themselves,
but for others.
They deserve great honor.