UTA Flight 772

The UTA Flight 772 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) that crashed in the Ténéré desert near Bilma, Niger on September 19, 1989, killing all 170 people on board due to an in-flight explosion caused by a suitcase bomb. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, was manufactured in 1973 and had accumulated 14,777 flight cycles and 60,276 flight hours before its hull loss. An investigation commission determined that a bomb placed in a container in the forward cargo hold caused the destruction of the aircraft, with the most plausible hypothesis being that the bomb was inside the baggage loaded at Brazzaville airport. The bombing was attributed to Libyan intelligence officers, who were later tried in absentia in a French court and found guilty.learn more on wikipedia