Aircraft lost contact during descent; severe weather blamed for accident

A military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in Algeria's mountainous northeast on Tuesday, leaving just one survivor in one of the country's deadliest air disasters, the defense ministry said.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced three days of national mourning from Wednesday, praising the soldiers who died in the crash as "martyrs".

The C-130 Hercules aircraft, which came down in the Oum El Bouaghi region, was carrying 74 passengers - soldiers and their families - as well as four crew members, the ministry said.

The figure was lower than the 103 people originally reported to be traveling on the aircraft by security sources and state media. The ministry gave no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

By early evening, emergency services had recovered 76 bodies from the crash site, including the remains of four women.

The sole survivor was taken to a military hospital at the flight's intended destination, the city of Constantine, east of the capital Algiers, suffering from head trauma, public radio reported.

Weather blamed

The plane, flying to Constantine from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in Algeria's deep south, lost contact with the control tower as it began its descent.

It slammed into Mount Fertas at about midday, state media quoted army spokesman Colonel Lahmadi Bouguern as saying.

Bouguern told the APS news agency there had been strong gusts of wind and a poor visibility in the region for the past few days.

The defense ministry said, "Very bad weather conditions, involving a storm and heavy snowfall, were behind the crash."

Nearly 250 emergency personnel were deployed to the crash site despite difficulties posed by the mountainous terrain and wintry conditions, the ministry added.

Algerian television broadcast images of the crash scene showing the shell of the aircraft lying in rocky, arid surroundings in a mountainous region.

The recovery teams found one of the aircraft's two black box flight recorders, Algerian newspaper El Watan reported on its website.

The ministry statement said a commission of inquiry has been set up and sent to the scene to determine the causes and circumstances of the accident.

Tamanrasset lies in the far south of Algeria, near the border with Mali, and is the main base for the country's southern military operations.

Extra troops and equipment have been stationed there in recent months as part of efforts to beef up surveillance of Algeria's frontiers with Mali and Libya, following a deadly hostage-taking by Islamist militants at a desert gas plant in January last year.

The city lies 1,500 km from Constantine and was the site of Algeria's worst air disaster in March 2003.

AFP-AP