Morocco, 1972 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 16 August 1972, barely a year after the Skhirat palace attack, King Hassan II of Morocco survived a second coup attempt, this time an aerial assault on his aircraft orchestrated by his own defense minister, General Mohamed Oufkir. As Hassan returned by Boeing 727 from a visit to France, four or more Royal Moroccan Air Force F-5 fighter jets, acting on Oufkir's orders and led from the Kenitra air base under Colonel Mohamed Amekrane, attacked the royal plane, riddling the fuselage and killing several people aboard. According to the widely told account, Hassan seized the radio and, posing as a crew member, told the attackers the king was dead, tricking them into breaking off.
The crippled jet landed safely at Rabat, though the fighters then strafed the airport, killing several more. The coup collapsed, Amekrane fled to Gibraltar and was later extradited and executed, and Oufkir was found dead of gunshot wounds the same day, officially a suicide but widely believed to have been executed.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
60008161972- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-600-1972-08-16
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: King Hassan II survived the aerial attack on his plane; Oufkir died and the plotters were executed.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →