31 March 2003

The Plane Crash of 1974

I am not much on plane crashes.  First of all I fly too often to want to think that something that big can crash to the ground, and usually kill everybody on board.

So when Jay came racing home from a hike to tell me there was a plane crash site in the Ermonenville Forest I wasn’t very anxious to walk there with him.  Cat thought it would be interesting, and since it was a sunny day we all bundled up and took a walk.

To walk in the forest here is wonderful.  There are dirt horse and bike paths.  Occasionally there are picnic tables.  As we drove to the forest (a quick five minute ride) we passed lots of people riding their bicycles from Senlis out to the thousands of acres that make up the forest near our house.

There is a sign directing hikers to the plane crash.  After we parked we walked along a wide path, past huge pine trees and calling birds towards the memorial the sign pointed us towards.

After quite a little walk we came upon a clearing.  In this quiet place surrounded by giant pine trees there is a huge brown stone monument for Flight 981 originating in Paris on March 3, 1974.  There was a long wall in front of the stone with the names of the people who died in the crash.  We counted 368.  Many of them were whole families.

On the ledge around the pointed monument were bits and pieces of metal.  I told Jay the junk looked like pieces of the plane that had been put there recently.  He said it wasn’t possible since the crash had occurred 26 years earlier and they would have cleaned up the site.

After exploring the area of the monument we moved on down a steep hill to explore further.  At different points we discovered more pieces of metal.  At one point we saw a huge piece, about the size of a car door leaning on a rock.  Another time we saw more big pieces dug into the ground.  They had been there a long time.

I kept wondering how so many pieces of the crashed plane could still exist.  In some ways it was an eerie site, but the woods are so peaceful that I felt like we should be paying our respects…like walking in a cemetery.

On the way back to the car we picked up pinecones and looked for different kinds of birds.  After eating our hastily packed picnic I was in a hurry to get home to find out about the plane crash.

On www.google.com I put in the date and the words “plane crash” and viola!, there was the story.

“3, March, 1974;  THY DC10-10; near Paris, France:  During climb, a rear cargo door which was improperly closed blew out.  The resulting cabin decompression caused damage to the main cabin floor and to some control cables in the area.  The crew was unable to control the aircraft and the plane crashed.  All 333 passengers and 12 crew were killed.”  Taken from THE STORY OF FLIGHT 981, by Moira Johnston.”

After reading all of the gory details I realized that all those plane parts were still there because there hadn’t been much of a fire.  Everything blew up in the sky.  I guess if it happened today everyone would say it was terrorism, but in reality it was an accident…a horrible accident.

My, the places in France we can choose for an adventure.  Next time Jay comes home with a plane crash site to visit I think I will stay home.