At least 78 people were killed and three severely wounded when a Moroccan military transport aircraft crashed on Tuesday in the south of the country, the army said.

It did not say how many passengers were on board the C-130 Hercules aircraft.

The official MAP news agency said the accident took place in a mountainous area near Guelmim, just north of the disputed Western Sahara territory.

Morocco's most recent plane crash was in 1994 when all 44 passengers and crew members aboard a Royal Air Maroc aircraft died in a crash near the southwestern city of Agadir. – Reuters