the incident was caused because of the cargo door. the cargo door was blown out of the plane because the locks of the cargo door failed. when the locks failed, the cargo door blew out and caused rapid decompression in the cargo area of the airplane. this caused the collapse of part of the passenger section of the airplane, which in turn led to some problems with the plane. the rudder of the airplane was jammed to the right, and cable controls to the second engine were separated. luckily, no hydraulics were broken. despite having little control of the airplane, captain bryce mccormick was successful in landing the airplane at detroit metropolitan wayne county airport. after the incident, mcdonnell douglas, the maker of the aircraft, made minor changes to the locks of the cargo door. these changes would prove to be not successful with the crash of turkish airlines flight 981. the crash was caused by exactly the same reason as this incident.