583 people were killed when KLM and Pan-Am jets, both Boeing 747s, collided on the runway of an airport on the island of Tenerife on a foggy day in 1977.
All 248 people on the KLM jet were killed, while 61 of the Pam Am plane's 396 occupants survived the deadliest aviation disaster in history.
But neither jet was supposed to be there: the planes were diverted to the airport because of a bomb scare at another airport. A mix-up in communications between air traffic control and the pilots led to the KLM pilot starting to take off down the runway and crashing into the Pan Am plane that was still preparing to take off.
Negroni told Business Insider that the crash is considered the "the birth of crew resource management — or what are the ways that people communicate badly or fail to communicate that leads pilots to continue to go down an unsafe path."
She said it was the start of a big effort to understand how human communication, from pilots to air traffic control, could be improved in the aviation industry.
The disaster was also a catalyst in making clear, English phrases standard across the industry, to avoid the same confusion in the future.