346 : On March 3 , 1974 , Turkish Airlines Flight 981 , a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 , crashed in a forest northeast of Paris , France . The London-bound plane crashed shortly after taking off from Orly airport ; all 346 people on board died . It was later determined that the cargo door detached , which caused an explosive decompression ; this caused the floor just above to collapse . The collapsed floor severed the control cables , which left the pilots without control of the elevators , the rudder and No. 2 engine . The plane entered a steep dive and crashed . It was the deadliest plane crash of all time until the Tenerife disaster in 1977 . It is currently the deadliest single-aircraft crash with no survivors
Turkish Airlines Flight 981
Turkish Airlines Flight 981
Aviation accidents and incidents