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 in Paris, France, that crashed into the Ténéré desert near Bilma, Niger, on 19 September 1989 with the loss of 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.
Aircraft and crew
The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, with American registration serial number 46852, was manufactured in 1973. 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.
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.
Incident
On Tuesday, 19 September 1989 the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft took off from N'Djamena International Airport at 13:13. Forty-six minutes later, at its cruising altitude of , a suitcase bomb exploded in the cargo hold, causing UTA Flight 772 to break up over the Sahara east of Agadez in the southern Ténéré of Niger. The explosion scattered debris over hundreds of square miles of desert. All 156 passengers and 14 crew members died.
Victims
Among the victims was Bonnie Pugh (née Barnes), wife of Robert L. Pugh, American ambassador to Chad at the time.
Eight of the fatalities were oil workers (from Esso, Parker, Schlumberger) coming back from the completed drilling of the Kome-3 borehole in southern Chad.
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 was on the flight.
The victims came from 18 different countries, the majority being French, Chadian, and Congolese nationals. The other countries with victims were the United States, Italy, Cameroon, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), Canada, Central African Republic, Mali, Switzerland, Algeria, Bolivia, Belgium, Greece, Morocco, Senegal, and the United Kingdom.
Investigation
An investigation commission of the International Civil Aviation Organization determined that a bomb placed in a container in location 13-R in the forward cargo hold caused the destruction of the aircraft. The commission suggested that the most plausible hypothesis was for the bomb to have been inside the baggage loaded at Brazzaville airport. Initial speculation over which groups might have been responsible for destroying UTA Flight 772 centered upon Islamic Jihad, who were quick to claim responsibility for the attack, and the "Secret Chadian Resistance" rebel group, which opposed president Hissen Habré. Five years previously, on 10 March 1984, a bomb destroyed another UTA aircraft from Brazzaville shortly after the DC-8 had landed at N'Djamena airport. There were no fatalities on that occasion and those responsible were never identified.
Trial in absentia
The investigators obtained a confession from one of the alleged terrorists, a Congolese opposition figure, who had helped recruit a fellow dissident to smuggle the bomb onto the aircraft. This confession led to charges being brought against six Libyans. French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière identified them, as follows:
Abdullah Senussi, brother-in-law of Muammar Gaddafi, and deputy head of Libyan intelligence; Abdullah Elazragh, Counsellor at the Libyan embassy in Brazzaville; Ibrahim Naeli and Arbas Musbah, explosives experts in the Libyan secret service; Issa Shibani, the secret agent who purchased the timer that allegedly triggered the bomb; and, Abdelsalam Hammouda, Senussi's right-hand man, who was said to have coordinated the attack.
In 1999, the six Libyans were put on trial in the Paris Assize Court for the bombing of UTA Flight 772. Because Gaddafi would not allow their extradition to France, the six were tried in absentia and were convicted.