UTA Flight 772

Route taken by UTA Flight 772

UTA Flight 772 of the French airline, Union des Transports Aériens, was a scheduled flight operating from Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, via N'Djamena in Chad, to Paris CDG airport in France.

On September 19, 1989, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 aircraft registered N54629 took off from N'Djamena airport at 13:13 hours. Forty six minutes later, at its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, an explosion caused UTA Flight 772 to break up over the Sahara Desert near the towns of Bilma and Ténéré in Niger. All 156 passengers and 14 crew members were killed, including Bonnie Pugh, wife of the American ambassador to Chad, Robert Pugh.

Investigation

An investigation commission of the ICAO determined that an improvised explosive device (IED) 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 IED 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.^[1] Five years previously, on March 10, 1984, an IED 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.^[2]

Parallels with PA 103

Wreckage of the aircraft was sent to France for forensic examination, where traces of the explosive pentrite were found in the forward cargo hold. Then pieces of a dark grey Samsonite suitcase covered in a layer of pentrite convinced the investigators that this was the source of the explosion. It had been loaded in Brazzaville. Also found was a tiny fragment of a green-coloured printed circuit board which, as in the case of Pan Am Flight 103, turned out to have been from a timing device. This fragment was identified by the FBI's Thomas Thurman as being manufactured by the Taiwanese firm "TY", which had supplied a number of such devices to Libya.^[3][4]

On June 28, 2007 the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was granted a second appeal against his conviction.^[5]

Trial in absentia

Then investigators obtained a confession from one of the alleged terrorists, a Congolese opposition figure, who had helped recruit a fellow dissident to smuggle the IED onto the aircraft.^[6] This confession led to charges being brought against six Libyans. French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière identified them, as follows:

• Abdullah Sanussi, the brother-in-law 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 IED; and,
• Abdelsalam Hammouda, Sanussi'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. However, although in 2003 Libya "accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials", it did not formally admit any responsibility for sabotaging either Pan Am Flight 103 or UTA Flight 772.^[7]

The motive usually attributed to Libya for the UTA Flight 772 bombing is that of revenge on the French for supporting Chad against the expansionist projects of Libya toward Chad. Libya was understood to have considered this French support as "neo-colonialist".^[8]

Libyan Compensation

The Paris court awarded the families of the UTA victims sums ranging from €3,000 to €30,000 depending on their relationship to the dead. Not content with this award, the French relatives' group Les familles du DC-10 d'UTA en colère signed an agreement on January 9, 2004 with the "Gaddafi Foundation" accepting a compensation payment of $170 million, or $1 million for each of the 170 UTA victims. By May 2007, it was reported that 95% of this compensation money had been distributed.^[9] However, the families of the seven American victims refused to accept their $1 million awards and are pursuing the Libyan government through a federal court in Washington. On September 19, 2006, the court was asked to rule that the Libyan government and six of its agents were guilty of the September 19, 1989 destruction of UTA Flight 772. Damages of more than $2 billion were claimed for the loss of life and the destruction of the DC-10 jet.^[10]

Popular references

• The song Le grand frère by French artist Adb al-Malik is about one of the victims of UTA Flight 772

References

1. ^ UTA Flight 772: Aviation Safety Network report
2. ^ UTA DC-8: Aviation Safety Network report
3. ^ UTA 772: The forgotten flight
4. ^ Thomas Thurman - crucial for identifying bomb timers
5. ^ Libyan jailed over Lockerbie wins right to appeal
6. ^ Les preuves trafiquées du terrorisme libyen by Pierre Péan (Le Monde diplomatique)
7. ^ Libya "accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials"
8. ^ The French military role in Chad
9. ^ Over $160 million of Libyan compensation distributed
10. ^ Compensation claim by American relatives

See also

• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Pan Am Flight 73
• Air India Flight 182
• Pan Am Flight 103
• Pierre Péan
• Alternative theories of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

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