During the last 22 seconds of the flight, the crew twice more radioed Maputo about the runway lights, affirming that they were not in sight, which was eventually acknowledged by the Maputo controller. Meanwhile, the captain stated "cloudy, cloudy, cloudy" and the navigator exclaimed "no, no, there's nowhere to go, there's no NDBs, nothing!". The captain then added "Neither NDBs, nor ILS!", which were the last words recorded on the CVR. The aircraft first impacted terrain at 21:21:39, approximately west of Maputo in a hilly region at an elevation of . At the time of the accident, it was a very dark night, a few minutes before moonrise. The last weather report passed to the aircraft indicated of visibility with 3/8 cloud cover at .