On 11 February 2014, a

C-130 Hercules The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 ...

military transport aircraft of the

Algerian Air Force The Algerian Air Force (AAF) ( ar, القُوَّاتُ الجَوِّيَّةُ الجَزَائِرِيَّةُ, links=, lit=, translit=al-Quwwāt al-Ǧawwiyyah al-Ǧazāʾiriyyah, french: Forces aériennes algériennes, links=, lit=, translit ...

, carrying 74 passengers and 4 crew members, crashed into Djebel Fertas mountain near Aïn Kercha, Algeria. Only one person survived. Preliminary reports suggest that bad weather conditions might have caused the crash. The accident is under investigation.

Weather conditions

Algerian

defence ministry {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a g ...

said the crash was likely caused by bad weather, including a storm and cascading snow, which Algerian aviation experts said most likely had led to poor visibility. According to

AccuWeather AccuWeather Inc. is an American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide. AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers, then a Pennsylvania State University graduate student working on a master's degree i ...

, at the time of the crash "an

area of low pressure In meteorology, a low-pressure area, low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclement weather (such as cloudy, windy, with possible ...

moving through the region was producing widespread showers mixed with snow in the higher terrain of the area"; meteorologist Eric Leister added that, "along with the rain and snow, wind gusts more than were reported in several locations in the region".

Accident

Contact with the aircraft was reportedly lost between

Constantine Constantine most often refers to: * Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I * Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria Constantine may also refer to: People * Constantine (name), a masculine given na ...

and

Oum El Bouaghi Oum El Bouaghi ( ar, أم البواقي) is a municipality in Algeria. It is the capital of Oum El Bouaghi Province Oum El Bouaghi or Oum el-Bouaghi ( ar, ولاية أم البواقي) is a province (''wilaya'') of Algeria in the Aures re ...

just before noon and

air traffic controllers Air traffic control specialists, abbreviated ATCS, are personnel responsible for the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. Usually stationed in air traffic control centers and control ...

dispatched helicopters to search for it. The sole survivor, a soldier, was taken to a military hospital in Constantine due to injuries from head trauma. The passengers included soldiers and members of their families.

Aircraft

The aircraft was a US-manufactured C-130 Hercules with the registration number 7T-WHM. Lockheed Martin confirmed it sold C-130H aircraft to Algeria from 1981 to 1990. , Algeria had 16 of the type according to FlightGlobal."77 dead, 1 survivor in Algeria plane crash, official says"
. FoxNews.com. 11 February 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2014.

Investigation

Recovery teams located one of the two

flight recorder A flight recorder is an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The device may often be referred to as a "black box", an outdated name which has b ...

s, according to ''

El Watan ''El Watan'' (Arabic:الوطن, meaning ''the Homeland'') is an independent French-language newspaper in Algeria. History and profile The paper was founded in 1990 after Omar Belhouchet and nineteen colleagues left the FLN government-owned ne ...

''. Emergency services had recovered 76 bodies from the site.

Reaction

Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced three days of state mourning starting 12 February, while also praising the dead soldiers as "martyrs". The defence ministry said it had established an investigative commission and that army chief of staff and deputy defence minister Ahmed Gaid Salah would visit the crash site.

References