The only survivors of the disaster were two flight attendants; the other eight crew members, and all 122 passengers on board the Boeing 707, were killed.

They braked so hard that they blew the main landing gear tires and destroyed undercarriage in an attempt to ground loop.

This death toll would be surpassed over 3.5 years later, when in February 1966, All Nippon Airways Flight 60 crashed into Tokyo Bay for reasons unknown, killing all 133 people.

Later investigation found indications that a motor driving the elevator trim may have failed, leaving pilot Captain Roland Hoche and First Officer Jacques Pitoiset unable to complete rotation and takeoff.

However, Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, speaking in Los Angeles, expressed joy over the deaths of the all-white group from Atlanta, saying I would like to announce a very beautiful thing that has happened...I got a wire from God today...well, all right, somebody came and told me that he really had answered our prayers over in France.

These remarks led Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty to denounce him as a "fiend" and Dr. King to voice disagreement with his statement.

[6] Malcolm later explained what he meant: "When that plane crashed in France with a 130 white people on it and we learned that 120 of them were from the state of Georgia, the state where my own grandfather was a slave in, well to me it couldn't have been anything but an act of God, a blessing from God (...)"[7] Atlanta's Center Stage (a theatre now primarily used as a music venue) was built as a memorial to Helen Lee Cartledge, a victim of the plane crash.

The French government donated a Rodin sculpture, The Shade, to the High Museum of Art in memory of the victims of the crash.

"[2] One of the victims of the flight was artist Douglas Davis Jr., known for his astonishing portraits of singer Edith Piaf that can be seen on album covers late in her career.