"The Shade" by Rodin at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Donated to the City of Atlanta by the French government in memory of the Orly air disaster victims.

"The Shade" by Rodin at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. Donated to the City of Atlanta by the French government in memory of the Orly air disaster victims. / Wikimedia Commons

At the time, it was the deadliest crash in aviation history. On Sunday morning, June 3, 1962, Atlanta was stunned by the news that a plane carrying 106 of its citizens had crashed on take-off at Orly Airfield near Paris, France. Below, you can watch the 2001 GPB documentary "The Day Atlanta Stood Still."

It tells the story of who the victims are, what brought them together in death, how a city was torn apart by their losses, and how that city was changed by the determination to honor them. In 2012, GPB's Joshua Stewart interviewed GPB colleague Rickey Bevington, whose father was 9 years old when his mother and grandmother died in the Orly Air Crash.

To learn more about the Orly crash and its impact, read "Explosion at Orly: The True Account of the Disaster that Transformed Atlanta" by Ann Uhry Abrams, who served as the principal historical consultant on "The Day Atlanta Stood Still." Published in July 2002 by Hill Street Press, it is available in libraries and bookstores.

Program originally aired on October 1, 2001

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