So these are plane crashes from around the world, but it's only for the countries that had a true crime case, if you don't see a plane crash in here, check my True crime from around the world book.
Warning, this book contains plane crashes and the a...
This plane crash takes us to the west African nation of Niger, which is located next to the following countries: Libya, Chad, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Algeria and Nigeria.
WARNINGS OF A PLANE BOMBING AND A PLANE CRASH
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Pictured above is the accident aircraft.
UTA Flight 772 was a scheduled international passenger flight of the French airline Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) operating from Brazzaville in the People's Republic of the Congo, via N'Djamena in Chad, to Charles de Gaulle Airport (IATA: CDG, ICAO: LFPG) in Paris, France, on the 19th of September 1989, which crashed into the Ténéré desert near Bilma, Niger, killing all 170 people on board after an in-flight explosion caused by a suitcase bomb. It is the deadliest aviation incident to occur in Niger.
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, with American registration N54629 (November 54629), serial number 46852, was manufactured in 1973 and first flew on 13 March. It was the 125th DC-10 produced, and had accumulated 14,777 flight cycles over 60,276 flight hours at the time of its hull loss. It was equipped with three General Electric CF6-50C2R engines.
The captain, 40-year-old Georges Raveneau, was an experienced pilot, with a total of 11,039 flight hours, 2,723 of which were on the DC-10. The left-seat pilot, 38-year-old Jean-Pierre Hennequin, had a total of 6,442 flight hours, 28 of which were on the DC-10. The first officer, 41-year-old Michel Crézé, had a total of 8,357 flight hours, 754 of which were on the DC-10. The flight engineer, 28-year-old Alain Bricout, had a total of 597 flight hours, 180 of which were on the DC-10.
On Tuesday, 19th of September 1989 the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft took off from N'Djamena International Airport (IATA: NDJ, ICAO: FTTJ) at 13:13pm. Forty-six minutes later, at it's cruising altitude of 35,100 feet (10,700 m), a suitcase bomb exploded in the cargo hold, causing UTA Flight 772 to break up over the Sahara 450 kilometres (280 mi; 240 nmi) east of Agadez in the southern Ténéré and to the north of the Termit Massif in the Zinder Region of Niger. The explosion scattered debris over hundreds of square miles of desert. All 170 occupants were killed.
The victims came from 18 different countries, the majority being French, Chadian, and Congolese nationals. After the plane was bombed, Leonardo Leonardi, a spokesperson for the Italian Embassy in Paris, said that the embassy believed that six Italians were on the flight. A spokesperson of the Friars Minor Capuchin religious order said that two members of the order were on board the aircraft. The bishop of Moundou, Chad, was also on the flight.
The other countries with victims were Algeria, Belgium, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, the Central African Republic, Greece, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Eight of the fatalities were oil workers (from Esso, Parker, and Schlumberger) returning following the completion of drilling of the Kome-3 borehole in southern Chad.
