Friday, March 27, 2015

Sad Moroccan Footnote to Germanwings Tragedy


The news that the co-pilot of the Germanwings A320 is suspected of deliberately crashing the aircraft brought back memories of another tragedy in Morocco back on August 21, 1994.


During a Casablanca-Agadir flight, the pilot of an ATR-42 Royal Air Morocco deliberately crashed his plane in the Atlas mountains near Tizounine. The crash caused the death of 44 people on board, including four crew members and twenty foreigners. A son of the businessman Miloud Chaabi was among the victims.

The cockpit recorder indicated that the last words of the first officer were registering surprise that the captain had deviated from the flight plan to which the captain responded "die, die ...". The captain, Younes Khayati, was found to have been "disappointed in love".

Moroccan victims

A newly married Moroccan couple headed for a new life in Germany were on the Germanwings plane a relative said.

"Mohamed Ettahrioui, 24, and his bride, Asmae Ouahoud El Allaoui, 23, were killed" in Tuesday's crash of the Airbus A320 bound from the Spanish city of Barcelona to Dusseldorf in Germany, Abdelhalim al-Boujoufi, a cousin of the groom, told Agence France-Presse.

"They were married in Barcelona on Saturday with their families there," he said.

The Moroccan consul in Barcelona, Yassine Fares, told the country's Medias24 website the couple were about "to start their new married life" in the Dusseldorf area.

The bride had grown up in Spain while her groom lived the past four years in Germany, according to Moroccan media.

Search and rescue officers in the French Alps hope to identify Asmae El Allaoui from the henna she had applied for her wedding.

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