Moroccan plane crashes killed scores of people

Seventy-eight of the 81 people aboard a Moroccan C-130 military transport plane are believed to have died when it crashed into a mountain on Tuesday in bad weather. The plane was preparing to land at Guelmim military air base in southern Morocco, near the disputed Western Sahara.

The remains of 42 people have been found so far and the Moroccan information minister, Khalid Naciri, said searches around the site were continuing. The national MAP news agency said the three survivors were seriously injured. It said the aircraft was carrying 60 military personnel, 12 civilians and nine crew.

MAP said the Morocco’s worst air crash in years was due to bad weather.

Naciri said the aeroplane was due to make a stop at Guelmim en route from Dakhla, in the Western Sahara, to Kinitra, in northern Morocco.

Guelmim is more than 373 miles southwest of the capital, Rabat, just north of the Western Sahara.

Morocco took over the mineral-rich Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1979. The Saharawi people want to establish the region as an independent state.

UN peacekeepers have been there since 1991. The UN has demanded a referendum but Morocco has instead proposed wide-ranging autonomy for the estimated 500,000 people who live in the sparsely populated desert flatland.