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Algeria Plane Missing


JOHN DOE

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Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has lost contact with one of its planes flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara.

 

Contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou, it said. The plane was last seen at 0155 GMT.

 

Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board, Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane, said.

 

The pilot had contacted Niger's control tower in Niamey to change course because of a storm, correspondents say.

 

Air Algerie tweeted that 50 French citizens were among those on board.

 

BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy says the route is well used by French travellers.

 

"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan," Air Algerie officials, quoted by APS news agency (in French), said.

 

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal reportedly told Algerian radio: "The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500km (300 miles) from the Algerian border."

 

Bad weather

UN troops in Mali say they understand the plane came down between Gao and Tessalit, the BBC's Alex Duval Smith in the Malian capital Bamako reports.

 

Brigadier General Koko Essien, who is leading the UN troops, told the BBC that the area leading up to the Algerian border was vast and sparsely populated.

 

He added that weather in the area had been bad overnight.

 

Armed groups are also said to be active in the area. However, at the moment the most probable scenario looks like a plane that came down in bad weather, our correspondent adds.

 

'Change of course'

The plane is operated by Air Algerie and chartered from Swiftair.

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It has crashed in Niger now. What a terrible year for aviation.

 

 

 

An Air Algerie flight carrying 110 passengers and six crew members has crashed, reportedly in Niger, after having disappeared from radar early on Thursday morning between Burkina Faso and Algeria.

 

http://rt.com/news/175264-algeria-plane-crash-ah5017/#.U9DtT0rrgXE.twitter

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The wreckage of a plane that disappeared with 116 people on board on a flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers has been found in Mali, officials say.

 
French troops based in the region are on their way to secure the site, about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Burkina Faso, French officials said.
 
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane early on Thursday after pilots reported severe storms.
 
The passengers on the Air Algerie flight included 51 French citizens.
 
The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 - Flight AH 5017 - had been chartered from Spanish airline Swiftair.
 
French President Francois Hollande expressed solidarity with the friends and families of those on board.
 
"A French military unit has been sent to (the area) to secure the site and gather evidence," his office said in a statement (in French).
 
The statement went on to say that the plane had "disintegrated", without giving further details.
 
France's Interior Minister said it appeared likely the plane had crashed due to bad weather.
 
'Burnt and scattered'
 
The crash site was identified on Thursday by the Burkina Faso army near the village of Boulikessi, officials said.
 
Gilbert Diendere, a Burkina Faso army general, said Mali had agreed to their cross-border search which was launched after a resident in Gossi described seeing a plane go down to the south-west of the town. 
 
"Sadly, the team saw no-one on site. It saw no survivors," he told reporters. 
 
 
"They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," he added.
 
Malian state radio said shepherds had been the first to spot the wreckage and had informed the authorities, the BBC's Alex Duval Smith reports from the Malian capital, Bamako.
 
'Sandstorm'
 
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told French radio network RTL that "the aircraft was destroyed at the moment it crashed", meaning that it did not appear likely that the plane was attacked mid-flight.
 
"We think the aircraft crashed for reasons linked to the weather conditions, although no theory can be excluded at this point," he said.
 
Earlier, French fighter jets and UN helicopters had been hunting for the wreck in the more remote desert region of northern Mali between Gao and Tessalit.
 
 
Algerian officials held a crisis meeting on the crashed plane 
Contact with Flight AH 5017 was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou early on Thursday morning, Air Algerie said.
 
The pilot had contacted Niger's control tower in Niamey at around 01:30 GMT to change course because of a sandstorm, officials say.
 
Burkina Faso authorities said the passenger list comprised 27 people from Burkina Faso, 51 French, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, two from Luxembourg, five Canadians, four Germans, one Cameroonian, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Swiss, one Nigerian and one Malian.
 
The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.
 
French ties
 
Flight AH 5017 flies the Ouagadougou-Algiers route four times a week, AFP reported.
 
BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy says it a route often used by French travellers.
 
France sent troops to Mali in January 2013 after al-Qaeda-linked militants threatened to overrun the capital, Bamako.
 
It ended its military deployment in Mali in July, but agreed to keep troops in the region as part of a new military operation based in Chad, focused on targeting Islamist extremists in the Sahel region.
 
France has strong ties to many west African countries. Mali, Algeria and Chad were all former French colonies.
 

 

R.I.P to all those killed 

 

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@ Local I know plane crashes happen more regularly than reported, but 4 commercial planes crashing with huge losses of life, in the last 7 months definitely isn't ordinary.

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