UTA Flight 772 was a scheduled international passenger flight of the French airline Union de Transports Aériens operating from Brazzaville in the People 's Republic of the Congo , via N'Djamena in Chad , to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris that crashed into the Ténéré desert , near Bilma , Niger , after an in-flight explosion in September 1989 with 170 people on board . It is the deadliest aviation incident to occur in Niger and the fourth-deadliest involving a DC-10 , after Air New Zealand Flight 901 , American Airlines Flight 191 , and Turkish Airlines Flight 981
Air New Zealand Flight 901
Air New Zealand Flight 901
UTA Flight 772