French Jet, 155 Aboard Missing in West Africa

A DC-10 airliner bound from Congo to Paris with 155 people aboard disappeared Tuesday, probably over the West African country of Niger, the French airline UTA said.

A U.S. ambassador’s wife was among the passengers, and a Chadian Cabinet minister also was reported on board.

UTA said there was no word of the plane’s fate by nightfall, more than five hours after contact was lost.

Bonnie Pugh, wife of Robert L. Pugh, the U.S. ambassador to Chad, was aboard, according to Robert Ayling, the deputy chief of mission, reached by telephone in N’Djamena, Chad. He said it appeared that a full-scale search would have to wait until daylight today.

A State Department official in Washington confirmed that Bonnie Pugh was aboard.

The French news agency Agence France-Presse, quoting unidentified sources, said Chadian Planning Minister Mahamat Soumaila was aboard, bound for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. The report was not confirmed, and UTA did not immediately issue a passenger list.

The French agency cited reports that the plane probably went down in the Mediterranean Sea between Algeria and Sardinia. But UTA said that given the short time between takeoff and loss of contact, that was “totally unlikely.”

Originated in Brazzaville

UTA Flight 772, with 140 passengers and 15 crew, originated in the Congolese capital of Brazzaville and made a stopover in N’Djamena. The plane left N’Djamena at 1:13 p.m. (5:13 a.m. PDT) and was due in Paris at 7:10 p.m. Paris time. The last radio contact between the plane and air traffic controllers, 40 to 50 minutes after the plane left N’Djamena, indicated everything was normal, the airline said.

UTA said that would be enough flight time to take the plane over the border into neighboring Niger. It reported no unusual weather in the area at the time.

The French navy dispatched a patrol aircraft from Dakar, Senegal, to join the search, the Defense Ministry said.

UTA said it believed the search focused on Niger, along the path the plane would have taken, and could involve military forces from Chad, Niger and France, which has a small force in Chad.

UTA (Union des Transports Aeriens) purchased the aircraft in 1973, and the plane had logged 60,000 hours in the air. It was given a complete overhaul in May, 1987, the airline said. There were no indications of mechanical trouble before the flight, UTA said.

Keith Takahashi, a spokesman for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., identified the aircraft as a DC-10-30, a popular model in the DC-10 series.