Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten

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Captain Jacob van Zanten in a KLM magazine ad

Jacob Louis Veldhuyzen van Zanten (Lisse, February 5, 1927–Tenerife, March 27, 1977) was the captain of the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Flight 4805, named Rijn (Rhine River), one of the two Boeing 747 airliners involved in the Tenerife disaster at Tenerife North Airport (known as Los Rodeos at the time) on the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, in which 583 people died. His initiation of a take-off, after a miscommunication in which he may have inferred--inaccurately--that he had clearance from air-traffic control, was the last link in the chain of events that led to a collision with a taxiing plane.

Veldhuyzen van Zanten entered service at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in 1950. He was KLM's most senior pilot with 11,700 hours of flight at the time of the disaster, even though he was mostly a flight instructor; nearly all KLM pilots who flew a Boeing 747 airplane in 1977 had been tutored by him. He was also a model for KLM's advertisements, including those in magazines on the planes. He was nicknamed Mr. KLM. When the first reports about the accident came through to KLM headquarters they even tried to locate mr. Van Zanten to send him to Tenerife to lead or help the investigations.