AWCS Marvin T. Clay
ASCAC Rota  P-3A
BUNO: 152182
06/03/72
Rome, Georgia
Aircraft crashed into the Moroccan mountains on a repo flight from Rota to Souda Bay.
Shipmates Comments:
Media Articles:
14 ON NAVY PLANE KILLED IN MOROCCO
N. Y. Times, June 4, 1972
NAPLES, Italy, June 3 (UPI)--A United States Navy plane crashed in northern Morocco today, killing all 14 men aboard, a Navy spokesman at Sixth Fleet Headquarters in Naples said.
The four-engine P-3 Orion submarine patrol craft crashed into the side of a 2,700-foot mountain about an hour after taking off from the Rota Navy Base in southern Spain, the spokesman said.
A Navy helicopter with medical personnel flew from Rota to the crash scene and its crewmen radioed that there were no survivors.
The spokesman said that the plane belonged to Squadron VP-44 and was on a routine patrol. He said the aircraft was stationed at Rota from its home base in Brunswick, Me.

Navy Times, June 21, 1972:
NAPLES, Italy--Fourteen Navy men died June 3 when their four-engine P3 Orion patrol plane crashed into the side of a mountain across the Straits of Gibraltar from Algeciras, Spain, about an hour after taking off from the Rota Naval Base in southern Spain.
Killed were: Lt. Cmdr. Robert L. Mendenhall, Lt. Manson H. Cheek, and Lts (jg) Edmund B. Titcomb Jr. and Michael J. Whittig.
Also, Senior Chief Aviation ASW Operator Marvin T. Clay, Aviation Machinist's Mate First Scott P. Russell, Aviation Electrician's Mate First Louis B. Comeau, Aviation ASW Operator Second Jarrel F. Crocker, Aviation Maintenance Administrativeman Second Thomas J. Kiley, Aviation ASW Technician Second Charles O. Wallace, Aviation Electronics Technician Third James S. Janssen, Aviation ASW Operator Third Stephen K. Peterson, Aviation Ordnancemen Third Michael E. Ryan, and Aviation ASW Operator Airman Robert E. Standley.
All crewmen were assigned to Patrol Squadron 44, home-based at Brunswick, Maine, except Chief Clay and Petty Officer Wallace who were attached to the Antisubmarine Warfare Classification and Analysis Center at Rota.