A CHUNK of an aeroplane which crashed in Tenerife 41 years ago has been found in a private garden.
According to the Nuclear Safety Council, the sighting of a piece of 'well-worn' uranium on the plot in La Laguna forced authorities to evacuate a nearby house as a precaution – but further inspection showed that the probability of radioactive emissions from the shard of metal was very low.
It has now been identified as part of a passenger plane.
In Spain's worst-ever air crash in history (pictured), two Boeing 747 collided on the runway at Los Rodeos airport in Tenerife on March 27, 1977, killing 583 people.
KLM flight 4805 and Pan Am flight 1736 – along with numerous others - had been diverted to Tenerife due to a terrorist incident at the airport in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, causing congestion and forcing planes taking off to taxi on the runway.
Dense fog blocking the view for both air-traffic control and the planes leaving added to the catalogue of errors that led to the most deadly air disaster in civilian aviation history.
The KLM flight had started to take off, not seeing the Pan Am craft still on the runway and getting ready to turn to start taxiing.
There were no survivors on the Dutch airline, and only 61 on the US craft – seated near the front – escaped with their lives.
A piece of one of the two Boeing 747s, measuring approximately half a metre, wedge-shaped, greyish-green and with the words 'Unauthorized Alterations' printed on it, was found by an individual who was cleaing weeds from the rented allotment.
The finder's house is located on the allotment, which is around four kilometres from Los Rodeos airport.
A MAN declared dead at his home in the province of Tarragona was on his way to the funeral parlour when he turned out to be alive, according to police sources.
A NEW child protection law named after a British musician living in Spain has been approved in Congress and is set to be signed off by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, June 8.
