The disaster had the haunting familiarity of a recurring nightmare. On Tuesday afternoon Flight 772, a DC-10 of the French airline UTA bound from Brazzaville to Paris, left the runway after its scheduled stopover in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. Twenty minutes into the flight, Captain Georges Ravenaud radioed the airport to report that all was normal. Flight 772 was never heard from again. High above the desolate Tenere desert in neighboring Niger, the plane exploded, killing all 157 passengers and its 14- member crew. Among those aboard were seven Americans, including Bonnie Pugh, wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Chad,...
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