The project ‘Take off [Nada de esto tuvo que haber ocurrido]’ commemorates the 1977 Los Rodeos airline tragedy
The Auditorio de Tenerife presented on 26 March a project commissioned to Canarian playwright Jose Padilla. Take off [Nada de esto tuvo que haber ocurrido] (Takeoff: None of This Should Have Happened) is a dramatic reconstruction of the circumstances of the airline crash at the Los Rodeos airport in 1977, the 48th anniversary of which was 27 March, coinciding with World Theatre Day. The details were announced by the regional Minister for Culture of the Island Council of Tenerife, José Carlos Acha, the Artistic Director of the Auditorio de Tenerife, José Luis Rivero, and the playwright Jose Padilla.
The Minister for Culture announced the new project, saying, ‘This is just one of the core objectives of the Auditorio de Tenerife, which is none other than to create culture. We are proud to be behind this Tenerife-based production, which we think has potential for projection abroad. This new work is about a terrible event in the history of Tenerife that we have approached with courage, maturity and responsibility. Playwright and producer Jose Padilla launched his career with a promise that is now a reality of which we are very proud’.
José Luis Rivero said, ‘Two initiatives of the Auditorio de Tenerife come together in this project: one is La Salita, our new theatre initiative and the other is the resume our ‘MAPAS’ market of performing arts of the southern Atlantic with a new strategic direction to project abroad our productions as a means of promoting the cultural intelligence of the Canary Islands’. Speaking about the playwright, Rivero went on to say, ‘His knowledge and command of the spoken word are vast, and his capacity of reflection helps us to achieve a better understanding of ourselves’.
Jose Padilla expressed his appreciation: ‘This means a lot to me because it’s the first time I’ve been allowed to develop from the ground up a project written and directed on my island’. He said he was thrilled to be able to ‘take my time working on this, with ample deadlines that are unusual in this business, in order to approach the project with the respect and sensitivity that the subject deserves’. Regarding the event on which the project is based, he said, ‘I was one year old when the accident happened. The tragedy became somewhat legendary, as it united the people of Tenerife. But I didn’t know exactly what it all meant at the time, and now I see many points of consensus to explore’.
After conducting the necessary documentary research, once Jose Padilla has prepared the tentative project, work will begin with an artist residency at the Auditorio de Tenerife from 28 April to 11 May. On the last day of the residency, an initial interpretation of the work will be shown with actors Almudena Puyo, Carlota Gaviño, Lucía Trentini and Tony Galán, along with the music and sound of José Pablo Polo. This will also include the first stages of promotion in which the project will be pitched to cultural authorities in Spain and abroad. Afterwards, more cast and crew will join the project, such as actor Kevin de la Rosa -who was in attendance at the presentation-, and coordination with production will begin for performances scheduled for March 2026 in the La Salita hall of the Auditorio.
Take off [Nada de esto tuvo que haber ocurrido] tells the story of the worst disaster in aviation history. On 27 March 1977, KLM flight 4805 departed from the airport of Schiphol for Gran Canaria with 234 passengers and 14 crew members onboard. Another aircraft, PanAm flight 1736, had departed from Los Angeles and stopped in New York, carrying 380 passengers and 16 crew members. A series of unexpected developments, in particular bomb threats at Gando airport, prevented both planes from arriving at their destinations. The two aircraft coincided at Los Rodeos airport in what was apparently meant to be a brief stop.
After midday, KLM Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten was instructed to taxi down the length of the runway after completing a 180-degree turn to get into takeoff position. The captain advanced the throttles and First Officer Klaas Meurs told him they had not been given clearance to take off. The captain was an experienced instructor who was accustomed to teaching new pilots to take matters into their own hands, without seeking authorisation. He told Meurs to radio the tower anew, and the latter read the flight clearance back to the controller, completing the readback with the statement ‘We are now at takeoff’. Misunderstandings ensued, and a disaster took the lives of 583 people.
According to Padilla, the project Take off [Nada de esto tuvo que haber ocurrido] is to be a fictional work without the restrictions of a purely commemorative tribute, and it is intended to reveal our past as a construct and a necessary step towards an interpretation of the present. The director acknowledged that this is not the first experiment in historical theatre, pointing out that theatrical works have often drawn on history as a source of inspiration. He went on to state that this work is meant to reflect an event from the past that holds great international significance and to draw parallels with our present.
Jose Padilla: author and director of the project
Born in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1976, he holds a degree in textual interpretation from the Royal Higher College of Performing Arts (RESAD) of Madrid. To date, he has directed 18 theatrical works and has written nearly 30 scripts of original and adapted works. As a director, he has overseen shows such as the Max Awards Ceremony held last year in the Symphony Hall of the Auditorio de Tenerife.
His accolades include the 2019 Max Award for Performing Arts for Dados, which he wrote and directed. Towards the end of 2018, French state theatre Comedie Française awarded him with the Coup de Coeur for his text Las crónicas de Peter Sanchidrián. A year before that, his direction, staging and recreation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure earned him the 2017 Gayarre Award, given to him by the local government of Navarre.
A few months before that, his script and direction of Perra Vida, a creative version of the novel of Miguel de Cervantes El casamiento engañoso, won the Almagro Off Award at the International Classic Theatre Festival of Almagro. In 2013, his prestigious track record and career were consolidated with the winning of the awards Premio El Ojo Crítico de Teatro and Premio Réplica to best Canarian author for his text Porno Casero. He is the co-author of Historias de Usera, which won the 2017 Max Award to Best Show.