was also noted that the handle on the crash aircraft had been filed down at an earlier date to make it easier to close the door. Finally, the latching had been performed by a baggage handler who did not speak Turkish or English, the only languages provided on a warning notice about the cargo door's design flaws and the methods of compensating for them. After the disaster, the latches were redesigned and the locking system significantly upgraded. In the following investigation, it was found that a similar set of conditions, which had caused the failure of an aircraft floor following explosive decompression of the cargo hold, had occurred in ground testing in 1970 before the DC-10 series entered commercial service. The smoking gun was a memo from the fuselage's manufacturer, Convair, to McDonnell Douglas, in which the series of events that occurred on Flight 96, and fatally on Flight 981, was foreseen; it concluded that if these events occurred it would probably result in the loss of the aircraft. In spite of this warning, nothing was done to correct the flaw. The consequences of this were many, including – but not limited to – some of the largest civil lawsuits to that date. Aircraft and crew The aircraft, a DC-10 Series 10 (production designation Ship 29), was built in Long Beach, California, under the manufacturer's test registration and leased to Turkish Airlines as on 10 December 1972. It was powered by three General Electric CF6-6D turbofan engines. The plane was one of a group of five DC-10-10s owned by Mitsui, which intended to sell the planes to All Nippon Airways; however, the Japanese airline selected the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, due to bribery by Lockheed. As a result, three of the planes went to Turkish Airlines and the remaining two went to Laker Airways. The accident aircraft had 12 six-abreast first-class seats and 333 nine-abreast economy seats, for a total of 345 passenger seats. At the time of the accident, two people were seated in first class, while the economy class was fully occupied. The cockpit crew was Turkish. Flight 981's Captain was Nejat Berköz, age 44, with 7,000 flying hours. First Officer Oral Ulusman, age 38, had 5,600 hours of flying time. Flight Engineer Erhan Özer, age 37, had 2,120 flying hours experience. Accident Flight 981 departed from Istanbul at 07:57 local time and landed at Paris's Orly International Airport