Fireflybob is dead on. Van Zanten and supposed lack of CRM should not shoulder all the blame for this accident, which happened because, tragically, [B]all[B] the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up. I'm sure Van Zanten was completely convinced he had received T/O clearance (after all, he had earlier acknowledged the FO's reminder that they hadn't). Maybe the FO realized, after they'd commenced their T/O roll, that they hadn't been cleared and/or that the Pan Am was still on the runway and was too intimidated to speak up but there is no substantive evidence for that. On the other hand, the F/E clearly had his doubts but was he merely unsure? Van Zanten, confident that he'd heard T/O clearance, emphatically confirmed to the F/E that the Pan Am had cleared the runway. Who knows, maybe he set the F/E's mind at rest. As long as human beings are at the controls (not just in aircraft but in the control tower and elsewhere), the potential for accidents remains.
Rockhound