O ur charter flight, Pan Am's Flight 1736, had departed Los Angeles the previous day, 26 March 1977, and made an intermediate stop at JFK in New York for a fuel and a crew change. This is where I joined the flight. I was the co-pilot. Our B-747 was destined for Los Palmas in the Canary Islands, but we had to divert unexpectedly to Tenerife – some 43 miles from our destination. After parking and talking to the ground staff, we learned that a terrorist's bomb had exploded in the terminal at Los Palmas and the airport would be closed for an indefinite time. [The attack was claimed by the Canary Islands Independence Movement.]
The captain, Victor Grubbs, elected not to allow the passengers to disembark, as he wanted to be ready to leave as soon as possible. Our wait lasted about three hours – during which time we allowed the passengers to visit the cockpit, which most seemed to really enjoy. At about that time, we heard the KLM plane, directly in front of us on the ramp, request a fuel truck. Fatefully, they had decided to add fuel while they were waiting. Within a very few minutes, the tower called and informed every plane waiting to fly to Los Palmas that the airport had re-opened. We called and asked KLM how long their refueling would last. The answer was that it would take about 30 minutes
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