Royal Air Maroc Flight 630


Royal Air Maroc Flight 630 was a passenger flight on 21 August 1994 which crashed approximately ten minutes after takeoff from Agadir–Al Massira Airport. All 44 passengers and crew on board were killed. It was the deadliest ATR 42 aircraft crash at that point in time. A later investigation showed that the crash was deliberately caused by the pilot.

Aircraft and crew

The aircraft involved was an ATR 43-312 which had its maiden flight on 20 January 1989. The aircraft was delivered to Royal Air Maroc on 24 March the same year. The aircraft was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW120 turboprop engines.
The captain was 32-year-old Younes Khayati, who had 4,500 flight hours. The first officer was Sofia Figuigui.

Flight

Flight 630 was a scheduled flight from Agadir, Morocco to Casablanca using an ATR 42 aircraft. At approximately ten minutes into the flight while climbing through, the aircraft entered a steep dive, and crashed into a region of the Atlas Mountains about north of Agadir.
The crash site was at Douar Izounine, about north of Agadir. Among the 40 passengers on board were a Kuwaiti prince and his wife. The prince was the brother of Sheik Ahmed al-Mahmoud al-Jabir al-Sabah, Kuwait's minister of defence. At least 20 of the passengers were non-Moroccans. This included eight Italians, five Frenchmen, four Dutch, two Kuwaitis, and one American.

Investigation

The commission that investigated the crash determined that the ATR 42's autopilot was intentionally disconnected by captain Khayati, who then deliberately crashed the aircraft. A flight union disputed the suicide explanation. The crash was the deadliest incident involving an ATR 42 aircraft at that point in time.