The Mauritanian military announced that one of its military training aircraft crashed this morning (Wednesday) in the city of Atar, in the northern part of the country, instantly killing two of its soldiers.
According to a press statement released on its website, the aircraft, an Italian-made SF260, is a small model predominantly used for military training purposes.
The crashed aircraft was part of a fleet used to train Mauritanian military aviation students at the Military Aviation School affiliated with the School of Various Weapons, which is based in Atar.
The military added in the brief press release that the aircraft “experienced a technical failure during a routine training flight” at 7:30 AM local time (GMT).
Over the last decade, several Mauritanian military aircraft have crashed, most during reconnaissance missions or training flights, as the Mauritanian army relies heavily on its air force in its strategy to combat terrorism.
Mauritanian military aircraft are also tasked with monitoring the vast desert areas where drug and arms smuggling networks are active, and which were previously targeted by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from 2005 to 2011.
