Accident Summary

On March 3, 1974, Turk Hava, Flight TK981, registration TC-JAV, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, departed Orly Airport in Paris, France for London's Heathrow Airport. The weather was ideal for the 12:30 P.M. departure and the airplane was cleared for ascent to flight level 230.

Approximately 10 minutes after takeoff, Flight TK981's radar label was seen to split into two, with one part remaining stationary before disappearing from the radarscope. The second part turned left on to a heading of 280 degrees. What the air traffic controller had observed was the separation of the cargo door, which occurred at a height of 11,000 feet over the village of Saint-Pathus - at a point when the cabin pressure should have been roughly equal to that of sea level. Seventy-seven seconds later, the airplane crashed in the forest north by north east of Paris.

When rescuers reached the scene, only bits of the aircraft remained intact in an area 2,300 feet long and 300 feet wide. All 346 passengers aboard the aircraft were killed, including 12 crew members.

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