Tenerife

By far the largest of the Canary islands.  Home to Pico de Tiede, the largest mountain in Spain, and actually the 3rd largest mountain on earth. (Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea are the other 2 that are larger.)  And, as those of you about my age might remember, home to what is still the worst airplane disaster ever.  One that for so many reasons, should have never happened.  The main airport for the international flights is not here, but on Gran Canaria.  Tenerife airport would have been like Bellingham or Fort Wayne. Just a regional airport, nothing more.  But, back then there was a bit of a separatist movement here in the Canaries that led to an airport bombing at Gran Canaria, and that led to diverting many flights to this minor airport on Tenerife.  Which is situated at 2,000′ and subject to wind and fog, and had only one runway which served as both the taxiway and runway. (La Palma is still that way today.  You taxi down the runway, turn around and take off. Not ideal, safety wise. ) So all of these planes were backing up here, including the two 747’s that collided upon a takeoff of one into the fog hitting the other taxing 747.  The taking off flight had not gotten full clearance to depart. A hugely disastrous misunderstanding, killing nearly 600 people.  Tenerife now has a separate taxiway, but otherwise it is back to being a sleepy airport.

Pico del Tiede actually from my incoming flight.  The airport discussed here is in the clouds between my plane and the mountain.