During a life cut short by tragedy, Francis Hope was a respected journalist, one of the best and brightest of his generation, writing for the Observer as European correspondent and a book reviewer, as well as for the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement.
As a journalist, he risked his life covering the Vietnam war, filing reports after flying over the fighting in US military helicopters. With tragic irony, he was killed at the age of 35 while a passenger in an airliner that crashed in France, killing all 346 on board. He left behind his wife, Mary, and their one-year-old daughter Polly.
Mary Hope sued the planeâs manufacturer in a case that led to what was then the biggest payout in corporate US history and new safety measures across the industry. Now her gruelling fight to expose shocking corporate malfeasance has inspired a major British film that will be announced this week. Hope, 85, is collaborating with film-makers to tell the story of the loss of her husband and the grief that drove her to seek justice.
As the Observerâs Paris correspondent, he was on board a Turkish Airlines DC-10 that crashed in the Ermenonville Forest outside Paris on 3 March 1974 in an accident that became known as the Ermenonville air disaster. It had been en route from Istanbul to Heathrow, with a stop over at Orly airport in Paris.
The crash was caused by a rear cargo door blowing out. It emerged that the aerospace company, McDonnell Douglas, knew of its design fault. In 1972, a new American Airlines DC-10 had nearly crashed over Windsor, Ontario, when its rear cargo door blew out at 12,000ft. It emerged that the same failure had occurred in 1970 when the plane was being tested on the ground.
Mary Hope â who was employed by the BBC, where Polly now works â was persuaded by the Sunday Times to sue McDonnell Douglas for building a lethal aircraft. She embarked on what was to become a ânightmarishâ fight that lasted three years. Asked what kept her going, she told the Observer last week: âI just was determined to get the truth. It was as simple as that. It certainly wasnât the money â although, obviously, the money was very helpful.
âBut that was not my impetus ⦠I was just the person who happened to be in the right place at the right time to pick up the baton and run with it.â
Struggling to understand corporate negligence that can lead to such tragedy, she said: âI suppose if youâre part of a corporation like that, you sort of mindlessly go through with the party line⦠Look at the Post Office [scandal]⦠Itâs the same thing.
âYou protect the corporate entity to which you have given yourself. Itâs as simple as that. Then a lot of people presumably in McDonnell Douglas had no means of knowing what the actual truth was.â
The film will show that she found herself in the line of fire, âaccused by insurers Lloydâs of London of being a money-grabber, spied on and pressured to end her action, with offers of a secret out-of-court settlementâ. She stood up to them and saw other British families join her class action.
It led to 1,123 claimants receiving the equivalent today of about $311m (£247m) and the US Federal Aviation Administration enforcing new safety measures across the aircraft industry, although no individual was ever held directly responsible for the crash.
The film, titled Mrs Hope, will be announced this week, just ahead of the 50th anniversary of what remains the single greatest loss of British life in an air crash. Its British producer, Guy de Beaujeu, told the Observer that it will tell the story of âappalling corporate malfeasanceâ and âa litany of criminal failingsâ that would never have otherwise come to light: âItâs just so shocking. You actually canât believe how people can sleep at night. This was very much a David and Goliath fight.â
He drew parallels with Erin Brockovich, the American legal clerk who took on the US utility company Pacific Gas and Electric over water contamination, inspiring the 2000 film starring Julia Roberts. âWith Erin Brockovich, they agreed the payout when they realised they were toast. Unfortunately, the same thing happened here â that McDonnell Douglas suddenly saw the weight of evidence against them and finally thought theyâd better settle. But they put everyone through three years of hell.â
De Beaujeuâs previous films include the acclaimed screen version of Journeyâs End, RC Sherriffâs powerful play about the first world war, which starred Sam Claflin and Paul Bettany.
For his latest production, he is collaborating with one of the key journalists on the Sunday Times team, Elaine Potter, who went on to co-found the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, âwhich seeks out stories we should all care aboutâ. She uncovered crucial evidence, including a document from Convair, the cargo door manufacturer, warning that if the cargo door was not fixed, a DC-10 would be lost with all on board.
Francis Hopeâs Observer obituary, headed âReporter, poet, polymathâ, paid tribute to his âdazzling intellectual giftsâ. It noted his reputation as âthe cleverest and most fastidious of reviewers and essayistsâ, one who was âready to tackle almost any subject from poetry to political philosophyâ and whose criticism was âcertainly astringent, often very funny, and perhaps wounding at times, but it was never crudely dismissiveâ. The obituary also praised his ability to transform the complexities of French politics, for example, into âneat silk purses of copy, concise, punctual and written with wit and insightâ.
Mary Hope had been with him for 15 years, since meeting at Oxford: âHe was the cleverest, brightest man⦠the youngest fellow ever of All Souls. He was sparklingly funny and witty⦠but he didnât strut around and say, âlook at meâ. Everybody loved him. This sounds like a grieving widow, but it is actually true.â
De Beaujeu was inspired to make the film by a friend who was seven when his father, a farmer, died in the same crash, one of 18 members and supporters of the Bury St Edmunds rugby team who were killed.
He said: âElaine [Potter] and Mary Hope could not bring back the victims of the crash, but they were able to change the lives of thousands of families affected by a disaster that should never have happened.â
