Our reporters were quick at Bijlmerramp: “The first image was of complete despair”

“It makes no sense, he crashed Henk.” These are the words of air traffic control that are still etched in the minds of millions of people. At 6.36 p.m. the Boeing 747 drilled into the Groeneveen and Klein Kruitberg flats, and at 6.45 p.m. presenter Adri Heyt spoke live with an eyewitness in the broadcast. It was the beginning of a long evening, Jeroen Dirks and Rudy Lion Sjin Tjoe also know. They were part of the crew of four reporters who quickly arrived on the scene.

“I mainly saw that it was very dark. I expected there would be more light, more emergency services. They were there, but before the flats themselves came into view it was surprisingly dark. What struck me was that there were perhaps a hundred meters from the place where it happened, flats were also on fire. Later it turned out that this was due to the kerosene that had been knocked out of the engines during the impact,” says Jeroen Dirks.

“I saw both Klein Kruitberg and Groeneveen completely ablaze. I heard screams from people, people who were still walking around in front of the flats,” said Rudy Lion Sjin Tjoe. “The first image was one of complete despair. Everything on fire. What stuck with me the most is all the little things. Little dolls, baby stuff, toys, everything lying there on the floor. That made me realize that this is a lot of people That first feeling was really like, ‘this has been really awful for the people who have been there’.”

Rate and gallery

“As editors, we immediately had a plan. We wanted to see what happened to the people affected by the disaster,” says Sjin Tjoe. “Jeroen Dirks was in a flat, and I was on the floor, together with Valentijn Nilsson. We walked around there, and then I immediately got to know some people. The Kruideman family, for example, who lost their son and daughter, I went there very long.”

Jeroen Dirks reported that evening from the apartment of a local resident. “There came a moment when I wanted to get closer to the crash site, and then there was just a discussion going on between two reporters and a motorcycle cop. The cop said, ‘Stay here for a while, because I just saw a body that is completely gone. blown up, and we’re going to drop it off in a minute.” Journalists said they had a press pass, but I didn’t want to wait for it and immediately ran. I then ran to the tenth floor of Kruitberg, via an open stairwell, and there I I rang the bell until someone opened it.”

“I stood with that man all evening, in the gallery. I gave him ten guilders and I used his telephone all evening, because at that time we had no mobile telephones at Radio Noord-Holland.”

Listen below to a report in which part of the contributions of reporters have been included

Although the disaster made a big impression on both reporters, Jeroen Dirks is not necessarily traumatized. “Everyone asks that, but it’s actually not that bad. That’s not because I’m such a man, but I already knew the Bijlmer before the disaster. We all had an area, and the Bijlmer was mine. When I was on my way I’ve already decided: I want to tell the people I already know a little about what’s going on in their neighborhood. They don’t care what I think of that, and what emotions play into it. If I make the first contribution I heard that I was in a panic.”

All together in the Nissan

At a quarter to twelve the reporters were told that the broadcast was over. At 12 o’clock the van with the transmitting equipment left the Bijlmer for the editors. “There was room for two people there, but we were in it with a whole team. In that van we unloaded for a while, talked about what we had seen. But after that it was right back to the order of the day. we discussed what we were going to do the next day, and then we quickly went home,” says Jeroen Dirks.

Both reporters were also in the Bijlmer in the days after the disaster. Rudy Lion Sjin Tsjoe says that at one point he managed to gain access to the sports hall where people were received. “I could talk to even more people there.”

“I remember most in the days after the disaster that the conscripts were called in to help with the reconstruction of the body parts. It was said that it made them man, and I remember that it had a big impact on me. Poor man boys of 19 or 20 years old, who had to reconstruct the dead there,” says Dirks.

“But in those days after that it was mainly the residents, who came back there and had completely lost their way, who impressed me. They didn’t even know where to go, and then, accompanied by three riot police, in the house. were allowed to pick up their passports. That seems so horrible to experience.”