September 19

On September 19, 1989, a McDonnell Douglas DC‑10 operating Union de Transports Aériens Flight 772 broke apart over the Ténéré region of the Sahara after a bomb detonated in the aircraft’s forward baggage hold. All 170 people aboard were killed. A decade of forensic work, international investigation, and courtroom battles followed, culminating in convictions in absentia and later state compensation tied to Libya.

On the morning of September 19, 1985, a massive subduction earthquake off the coast of Michoacán sent long, low-frequency waves into the Basin of Mexico. For two or three minutes the city that sat on a reclaimed lakebed swayed, and entire mid-rise blocks in central districts pancaked or tilted. The death toll—officially reported at around 10,000—remains disputed; tens of thousands were injured and hundreds of thousands were affected. The disaster exposed geological and political fault lines, birthed a vast citizen rescue movement, and reshaped Mexico’s approach to seismic risk for decades to come.

On September 19, 1976, Turkish Airlines Flight 452 struck rising terrain near Isparta in southwestern Turkey during its approach in instrument conditions. The aircraft was destroyed and everyone aboard was killed. Investigators concluded the accident was a controlled flight into terrain amid limited navigational guidance and poor visibility — a tragedy that fed a wider industry reckoning with CFIT risks in the 1970s.

Beginning on September 19, 1944, U.S. forces entered the ancient Hürtgen Forest east of the Belgian–German border. What followed was months of grinding, close-quarter fighting in mud and cold as American infantry struggled to clear ridges, villages, and observation points while German defenders used the trees, bunkers, and minefields to bleed them slowly. The fighting stretched into winter and is remembered as one of the bloodiest, most contested forest battles on the Western Front.