Bijlmerramp

It is definitely a weird moment in life, the moment you realise your home is gone because a 747 jumbojet crashing into it. I survived by not being home. By the time I got home it was dark and the building was engulfed in bright orange flames. The smell of kerosine was everywhere. I couldn’t see my apartment on the 7th floor. I was suddenly homeless and without possessions. Neighbours were completely shell shocked.

I moved into apartment block Groeneveen 451 when I started my internship in Amsterdam with pop music photographer Rob Marinissen and documentary photographer Willem Diepraam in September 1989. Three years later on 4 October 1992 the airplane crashed when attempting to land with two of its engines torn off and malfunctioning hydraulics.

I had just graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (KABK) a few months before and this accident was a serious blow to my career as a photographer. In fact, after being in limbo for a year I decided to take a course in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. At that moment it was not clear how long I had to wait for financial compensation from Boeing and El-Al.

The real pain was realising the young children next door were dead.

In my basement I have a time capsule with newspapers from the week after the disaster, the original key to my door and the book ‘Een gat in mijn hart’ (a hole in my heart) with children’s drawings published shortly after. I will probably never open the time capsule.

The EL-Al Cargo Boeing 747-200 registration "4X-AXG”, which crashed into the apartment block Groeneveen/Kruitberg in Amsterdam Zuidoost.

The accident had a great impact on children who witnessed everything.

Reconstruction of the doomed flight