S05 · E02

Behind Closed Doors (American Airlines Flight 96 and Turkish Airlines Flight 981)

Apr 16, 200845mRating 8.0

On 12 June 1972, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, just a few months old, operating as American Airlines Flight 96 from Detroit, Michigan, to Buffalo, New York, suffers an explosive decompression after a cargo door in the lower rear fuselage bursts open. The crew makes an emergency landing at Detroit without any loss of life. Two years later, on 3 March 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 suffers a similar sequence of events during a flight from Paris to London. This time, the DC-10's hydraulic systems are damaged enough that the crew loses control, and the aircraft crashes in a forest near Senlis outside Paris, killing all 346 on board. At the time, it was the worst aviation disaster in history. A design fault with the cargo door mechanism was not rectified after the first accident, and the second DC-10's door opened during flight, causing the crash.

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Behind Closed Doors (American Airlines Flight 96 and Turkish Airlines Flight 981)

Episodes

Explosive Evidence (Air India Flight 182)

Behind Closed Doors (American Airlines Flight 96 and Turkish Airlines Flight 981)

Southern Storm (Southern Airways Flight 242)

Dead Weight (Air Midwest Flight 5481)

Invisible Killer (Delta Air Lines Flight 191)

Gimli Glider (Air Canada Flight 143)

Fanning the Flames (South African Airways Flight 295)

Fatal Distraction (Eastern Airlines Flight 401)

Mixed Signals (Birgenair Flight 301)

Phantom Strike (Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907)