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 w ...

military transport aircraft of the

Algerian Air Force The Algerian Air Force (, ) is the aerial arm of the Algerian People's National Army. History The Algerian Air Force was created to support the fight of the People's National Army against the French occupying forces. It came as part of the ...

, 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 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided ...

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 a private-sector American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services. AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers. The company adopted the name 'AccuWeather' in 1971. AccuWeather is headquar ...

, at the time of the crash "an

area of low pressure In meteorology, a low-pressure area (LPA), low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. It is the opposite of a high-pressure area. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclem ...

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 g ...

and

Oum El Bouaghi Oum El Bouaghi () is a municipality in Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to A ...

just before noon and

air traffic controllers An Air traffic controller (ATC) is a person responsible for the coordination of traffic in their assigned airspace. Typically stationed in area control centers or control towers, they monitor the position, speed, and altitude of aircraft and c ...

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 FlightGlobal is an online news and information website which covers the aviation and aerospace industries. The website was established in February 2006 as the website of ''Flight International'' magazine, ''Airline Business'', ''ACAS'', ''Air ...

."77 dead, 1 survivor in Algeria plane crash, official says"
.

FoxNews.com The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is own ...

. 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 colloquially as a "black box", an outdated nam ...

s, according to ''

El Watan (Arabic language, Arabic: الوطن, "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 National Liberation Front ( ...

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

Reaction

Algerian president

Abdelaziz Bouteflika Abdelaziz Bouteflika (; ; 2 March 1937 – 17 September 2021) was an Algerian politician and diplomat who served as the seventh president of Algeria from 1999 to his resignation in 2019. Before his stint as an Algerian politician, Bouteflika s ...

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 Ahmed Gaid Salah (; 13 January 1940 – 23 December 2019) was an Algerian military officer and chief of staff of the Algerian People's National Army from 2004 to 2019. In 2004, he was appointed by then-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to the posit ...

would visit the crash site.

References