Remembering the Turkish Airlines Flight 981 crash

After the improperly secured rear cargo door blew off 10 minutes into the flight, the sudden difference between the air pressure in the cargo area and pressurized cabin above it caused an explosive decompression.

This is an aerial view of the path cut through the forest at Ermenonville, north of Paris, by the crash of Turkish Airlines flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, March 3, 1974. While the Turkish Airlines flight's second leg from Paris to London was normally under-booked, it was a reported that a strike action by British European Airways employees saw many London-bound travelers booked onto Flight 981.

Firemen and rescuers stand near smoking debris of the Turkish Airline DC 10 Jumbo jet on March 3, 1974, which crashed into Ermenonville forest, north of Paris where all of the 346 persons aboard were killed, becoming the worst disaster in civil aviation history at that time.

First responders sift through the wreckage, which was so fragmented that it was difficult to tell whether any parts of the aircraft were missing.

The front page of the Daily News read "346 die in Paris jetliner crash" on March 4, 1974.

Firemen and rescuers stand near smoking debris of the Turkish Airline DC 10 Jumbo jet on March 3, 1974. The passenger plane, carrying 346 people on board, plummeted to the ground after an improperly secured cargo door at the rear of the plane broke off and caused an explosive decompression. There were no survivors.

The aircraft was reportedly travelling at a speed of approximately 430 knots (490 mph; 800 km/h) in a slight left turn, fast enough that the plane disintegrated into millions of pieces instantly.

Of the 346 passengers and crew on board, only 40 bodies were visually identifiable with rescue teams recovering some 20,000 body fragments in all. Nine passengers were never identified.

Rescue workers recover a body from the debris of the downed Turkish Airlines DC-10 plane that claimed 346 lives.

Firemen stand near the fuselage of the Turkish Airlines DC10 jumbo jet carrying 346 persons which crashed into the Ermenonville forest, north of Paris on March 3, 1974. Flight 981 had flown from Istanbul that morning, landing at Paris's Orly International Airport before taking off on the flight's doomed second leg from Paris to London Heathrow Airport.

French officials looking at the corpses and the debris leftover from the DC10 Turkish Airlines airplane crash in the Ermenonville Forest near Paris, which claimed 346 lives on March 3, 1974.