[1] Halfway through its flight on 29 November 2013, the Embraer E190 twinjet operating the service crashed into the Bwabwata National Park in Namibia, killing all 27 passengers and 6 crew on board.

[2][3] Preliminary findings of the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) showed that the captain deliberately crashed the jet.

[1] While cruising at about 38,000 feet (12,000 m) in Botswanan airspace, about halfway between Maputo and Luanda, the Embraer began to rapidly lose altitude.

[13] The Namibian Police Force Deputy Commissioner Willy Bampton stated that there were no survivors and that the aircraft was "burned to ashes.

[3][19] On 21 December 2013, the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (Portuguese: Instituto Moçambicano de Aviação Civil, IACM) head João Abreu presented the preliminary investigation report, according to which Captain Herminio dos Santos Fernandes had a "clear intention" to crash the jet and manually changed its autopilot settings, making this a suicide by pilot.

[21] NTSB pilot psychologist Malcolm Brenner stated that during this period the captain was probably "thinking about life" and contemplating whether he could carry out such an action.

[3][23] Contrary to the operational policy of Mozambique Airlines, a cabin crew member was not present in the cockpit during the co-pilot's absence.

According to the AMOPAR document, the Mozambican Government had not complied with the standards and recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "about the disclosure, contents and procedures relating to the preliminary report of the investigation of the crash of flight TM 470.

This meant that the airline industry failed to apply safety measures in time to avoid another similar incident, the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps in 2015, which was found to be a deliberate act by the co-pilot.