Air Algerie flight 'crashes in Mali' with 116 people on board

 
Lost contact: the plane was carrying 116 passengers
Alexandra Rucki24 July 2014

An Air Algerie flight carrying 110 passengers and six crew members has crashed in Mali, according to reports.

More than 50 French nationals were on board the plane along with 27 Burkina Faso nationals. sSx Lebanese, five Canadians, four Algerians, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian were also passengers. The flight crew was Spanish.

"Everything allows us to believe this plane crashed in Mali," French President Francois Hollande said in a statement this evening after an emergency meeting in Paris with senior officials, adding the crew changed its flight path because of "particularly difficult weather conditions."

Niger security sources say planes are flying over its border with Mali to search for the plane.

Contact was lost 50 minutes into the flight after MD-83 took off from Ouagadougou, in west African nation Burkina Faso.

The Air Algerie plane, chartered from Spanish airline Swiftair, was travelling to Algiers with 110 passengers and six crew members on board.

It was last seen at 1.17am local time and was due to land in Algiers at 5.10am, but never reached its destination.

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

In a statement Swiftair said the aircraft was an MD83 and they were unable to establish contact with the plane.

The company said it was trying to ascertain what had happened to the plane. It said the crew managing the flight was Spanish and included two pilots as well as four cabin staff.

The flight path of the plane from Ouagadougou to Algiers took the plane over Mali where unrest continues in the north.

Northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremists following a military coup in 2012. A French-led intervention last year scattered the extremists, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government.

A senior French official said it was unlikely fighters in Mali had weaponry that could shoot down a plane.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fighters have shoulder-fired weapons which could not hit an aircraft at cruising altitude.

Two French fighter jets based in the region have been dispatched to try to locate the airliner along its probable route, a French army spokesman said.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Officer are investigating if any British people were on board the flight.

The disappearance of the Air Algerie plane comes after a spate of aviation disasters.

Last week a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed over Ukrain, a TransAsia Airways crashed off Taiwan during a thunderstorm yesterday and airlines have been cancelled flights into Tel Aviv due to the conflict in Gaza.

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