Bensour (Working Name) fell on February 10, 2002 at around 4:30 PM in Morocco.
Preliminary lab results indicate it is LL6, FA 31 +/- 1, S4, W0. It is
a fine grained, monomict, brecciated LL6 chondrite. The total weight seems to be in the 25 kilo range.
Mike Farmer interviewed several eyewitnesses (with a translator of course) and here is the story as told by Amhirich Omar, a
Berber who was camping in the area. "Omar was out tending his camels when at about 4 in the afternoon on Sunday February 10, 2002, he saw a light in the sky to the
west. It rapidly grew very bright but was not moving (it was coming at him strait on). Then quickly the object exploded into many
pieces, and passed overhead leaving a trail of dark smoke. A moment later the explosions like thunder were very loud.
He thought that it was a military jet that had been shot down. He saw the pieces fall to the
ground about 3 kilometers from where he was. He told his children to guard the animals
and he took his brother to go find the crashed airplane. (The area is on the disputed
Morocco/Algeria border, and military is common there. No one is allowed there but military
and Berbers who have rights to pass about anywhere.) When the arrived at the area where
he saw the pieces fall, he found burned black stones everywhere, and many broken pieces.
The date was listed previously as 11 or 12 Feb, but it is confirmed to be afternoon on Feb 10 as this is Sunday and that is
market day in Rissani, so many Berbers had gone to the market there that day.
(Interview details from Mike Farmer, with permission)
The pictures below of
the interior don't show how really nice it is. The small shock veins are
everywhere and there are a number of troilite inclusions visible. Even
pieces with small chips <10mm across will show the shock veins.