Turkish Airlines 981--1974

[TC-JAV]

For those of you old enough to remember, what are your memories of the Turkish Airline crash 981 (Paris)? By strange coincedence, we were in Sinop, Turkey(my husband was stationed there from '73-'74)eating dinner with our landlord. Their daughter (who spoke passible english) was listening to the radio when she got excited and told us a Turkish Airlines plane had crashed in Paris. At first they were suspecting sabotage.
At the time I wasn't really interested in plane crashes, or I would have collected all the turkish newspapers and magazines that came out at the time. I do have the book, "The Last Nine Minutes" tho.

[Tbun]

yeh cool. Couldnt scan the book and post it could ya? Cheers.

[uy707]

Some memories
Aircraft was one of the airline 3 DC.10-10s.
THY was reported then to be the first airline operating DC.10s on scheduled services to/from western Europe
Aircraft involved was operating over the route IST-ORY-LHR & vv
An hatch was unproperly secured at Orly
Aircraft was en route to London, quite a few additionnal passengers were reported to have boarded at ORY
Subsequently to the crash, some inspectors were dispatched to investigate on THY's operations related to the DC10s. Part of the team was crewed by active UA F/Os.
According to some reading, one of the F/Os noted 15 faults from a TK corresponding number during a flight.

[HalcyonDays]

My own memory was the shock of the first fully loaded wide bodied airliner to crash with hundreds of passengers. This was a shock event in the mainstream media and very widely covered. It represented a paradigm shift in aviation disasters. I remember the well-covered investigative process, much followed in the media, and the fact that it should never have happened, especially after the American DC-10 Windsor incident two years earlier. The DC-10 sadly never really recovered, even though the string of subsequent major losses to this airframe in the 1970s were unrelated. To this day, among middle aged and older people, the DC-10 sometimes conveys a shiver to many people.

[TC-JAV]

Dc-10

After the incident, I flew on a SAS DC-10 from Seattle to to Copenhagen (sorry I don't know the airports by the letters pilots use) and I wasn't thrilled about it.
Also some time after the Chicago crash in '79, I flew another DC-10. I was quite nervous to say the least!

[Uncle Jay]

L-1011 Fan

When United starting requiring passengers to file a set of dental records before each DC-10 flight, traffic fell off....

Saturday Night Live line

[MadDog]

The latching mechanism didn't work right on those DC-10's.

See the History Channel documentary here....

http://www.mediafire.com/?hlomyvnhjey

They talk about one AA incident and the Turkish accident. Same cause.

[DAIRD]

If the DC-10 would have been an incredible bad aircraft, it surely never would have made a succesful first flight and so no following testflight would have been completed properly. No, it was the man who talked this aircraft unsafe. DC-10's still flying around today, some of them for more than 25 years. The Chicago-crash in 1979 was the fatal result of saving time - and money. So the mechanism of the latches that brought the THY DC-10 to crash: changing them would have been very expensive. And they knew about since June 1972!
I loved to fly on Condor and LH DC-10's, and never felt unsafe. I also felt safe on Sun Express 737 or PAA 737-200 (even in the days after the Aloha-Incident). The not-detected haircracks which seperates engines from the wing or / and the attitude of thinking: "this will never going to happen!" - it is still the man, who does his job not with that care he should, ignoring procedures, hiding bombs in cargo holds (which are not properly checked...) saving money... pilots who are suffering heart-attacks or leaving the cockpit and killing passengers, crew who listen to the soccer finals without checking navigation ...

Correct me if I should be wrong.

[Dmmoore]

This last year I watched fuselage No. 004 (part of the test flight group) retired and scrapped out. The aircraft was built in 1970 and flew for 37 years, more than 80,000 flight hours with no major problems in all that time. Of the 386 DC-10's built, I know where about 100 are still flying. The last one was built in 1988, 20 years ago.

She's a tough old bird that can take a lot of abuse and fly on. The MD-11 is not quite as robust but still tougher than any aircraft currently in production.

[flyboy2548m]

I'm pretty sure the DC-10 and its glorious history is a horse that's been beat to death, carved up and eaten years ago. Move on, people.

[uy707]

The Chicago-crash in 1979 was the fatal result of saving time - and money. So the mechanism of the latches that brought the THY DC-10 to crash: changing them would have been very expensive. And they knew about since June 1972!

Next to ORD crash, I always found the grounding of all Big Tens as one of the MOST unjustified and weirdest decision ever made by the FAA, especially since the incidents involving both THY and AA did not reproduce on the 30s and 40s
I still have lots of sympathy for UTA and Air Afrique which had their operational fleet halved overnight, this at the eve of the busy summer season when expatriates flew up for their yearly vacations ! I still curse the FAA for their decision and for heck of hell they provided by forcing us to run an even stressful race to find alternative aircrafts, often on worst shape than the grounded Tens and disgustfully charged at a premium by some I won't name by charity.

[crazpony]

I'm pretty sure the DC-10 and its glorious history is a horse that's been beat to death, carved up and eaten years ago. Move on, people.

I currently fly the DC-10-30, 5,000+ hours and still love the aircraft. Great handling, lots of power, last of the dumb airplanes.

[flyboy2548m]

I currently fly the DC-10-30, 5,000+ hours and still love the aircraft. Great handling, lots of power, last of the dumb airplanes.

I was referring to people who can't help talking about all those crashes again and again, not those who actually fly the airplane.

[Airfoilsguy]

I was referring to people who can't help talking about all those crashes again and again, not those who actually fly the airplane.

Lets all rember that all the DC-10s that crashed did so becuse of people not doing what they should have done, the plane its self was blameless

[DAIRD]

Next to ORD crash, I always found the grounding of all Big Tens as one of the MOST unjustified and weirdest decision ever made by the FAA, especially since the incidents involving both THY and AA did not reproduce on the 30s and 40s by charity.

It was not the FAA. It was Ralph Nader who "requested" FAA all (= woldwide!!) DC-10's grounded. The same way, he shot down the Chevrolet Corvair and Ford's Pinto (what in the Pinto's case was justified... anyhow).