The following report has no direct connection with Munich Airport. However, the machine, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 "Ankara", was the first DC-10 at Munich Airport. Since this machine also made history for Munich Airport, we should mention the incident that occurred around 14 months after the successful landing at Riem Airport.

Flight 981 took off from Istanbul on March 3, 1974 and landed in Paris-Orly shortly after 11:00 a.m. local time. The McDonnell Douglas "Ankara" DC-10 (TC-JAV) of Turkish Airlines had 167 passengers and 13 crew members on board. 50 passengers ended their flight in Paris. The second leg of the flight from Paris to London was not fully booked, but due to a strike at British European Airways (BEA), many BEA passengers were rebooked on flight 981. Among the passengers from a dozen countries were 17 English rugby players who had competed for an international match in France the day before, the track and field athlete John Cooper, several British models and 48 Japanese bank management trainees.

The plane took off from Orly at 12:30 p.m. local time from runway 08 in an easterly direction. To fly around Paris, the flight went via Coulommiers in the east and only then turned towards Montdidier (Somme) with a course 345 degrees (north-northwest) on London. The tower in Orly gave clearance for FL 230 (7000 meters). When the aircraft was climbing over the town of Meaux at flight level 130 (approx. 4000 meters) at about 12:40 p.m., the tower in Orly received distorted radio messages from flight 981: While the pilots were speaking Turkish, the words "pressurization" were and "Overspeed" mentioned. In addition, the following sentence could be heard: “the fuselage has burst” - in German: “the trunk has burst open”.

The aircraft soon disappeared from the radar screen. A short time later, the completely destroyed machine was found southeast of the city of Senlis in the forest of Ermenonville. The parts of the DC-10, many of which could not be assigned, were scattered on a 700 meter long and 100 meter wide aisle. All 346 people on board were killed. Only 40 of the bodies could be identified visually, the identity of 9 passengers could no longer be determined.

Source: Wikipedia