The 1974 Togo plane crash refers to an incident on 24 January 1974, when a Togo Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain:5V-MAG carrying several notable political figures crashed at an isolated location near the village of Sarakawa in northern Togo

Togo

Togo, officially the Togolese Republic , is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately with a population of approximately...

. Gnassingbé Eyadéma

Gnassingbé Eyadéma

General Gnassingbé Eyadéma , was the President of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005. He participated in two successful military coups, in January 1963 and January 1967, and became President on April 14, 1967...

, the President of Togo, was on board the plane, which was flying from Lomé

Lomé

Lomé, with an estimated population of 737,751, is the capital and largest city of Togo. Located on the Gulf of Guinea, Lomé is the country's administrative and industrial center and its chief port. The city exports coffee, cocoa, copra, and palm kernels...

 to his mother's home to Lya when, on its descent, it crashed near Sarakawa. Eyadéma survived, but his French pilot and three other passengers died.

Eyadéma claimed the French had sabotaged the plane after he'd reneged on an agreement with a French company over the use of a phosphate

Phosphate

A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...

mine. Eyadéma attributed his survival to mystical powers and declared January 24 to be "Economic Liberation Day." Eyadéma even changed his first name from Étienne to Gnassingbé to remember the date of the day he survived the crash.

Following the incident, a monument was established by the Togolese government near the crash site. The monument depicts Eyadéma standing tall on top with the photographs of his generals at the side who died in the crash.