Missing Air Algerie Plane From Burkina Faso Reportedly Crashes Carrying 116 People
An Air Algerie flight AH5017 crashed on Thursday en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers with 110 passengers on board, an Algerian aviation official said.
By Darian Goh — 24 Jul 2014, 05:47 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
AH5017 Fatal Crash Believed To Be Due To Heavy Thunderstorm And Sandstorm
A screengrab of the homepage of the Ouagadougou airport's Internet site shows a candle next to the flight number AH5017 and a map displaying the plane's last contact zone, July 24, 2014.
Image via themalaysianinsider.comFrench Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said authorities believed flight AH5017 may have encountered bad weather after the pilot requested to change direction shortly after takeoff due to a storm. However, he said no hypothesis had been excluded.
reuters.com
Fierce thunderstorms were pounding the Sahara region where the plane, Flight 5017, would have flown, and the storms probably played a role in bringing the plane down, according to the official, Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, chief of the general staff.
nytimes.com
Residents of northern Mali reported a heavy sandstorm overnight. “There was a lot of damage from the wind, especially in the region of Kidal,” said Kata Data Alhousseini Maiga, an official with the United Nations mission in Gao, Mali. “The sand was so thick that you couldn’t see.”
nytimes.com
Burkina Faso’s transport minister confirmed that the Air Algerie flight had asked to change course at 1:38 am GMT because of a storm. Meanwhile, an Algerian aviation source, who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP that “the plane was not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route.”
rt.comDaylight may provide answers to the questions about the cause that hung over a day of searching for the plane on Thursday. “We think it was the weather — there were lots of storms, lots of lightning,” General Diendéré said.
nytimes.com
Crashed Air Algerie Plane Found In Mali With No Survivors
The wreckage of Air Algerie flight AH5017 which crashed yesterday has been found in a desert in northern Mali, Burkina Faso officials were reported as saying, adding that there were no survivors.
themalaysianinsider.com
French forces, including two fighter jets, helped search for the aircraft, along with Algerian and U.N. personnel in the region, Fabius said.
cnn.comWe have found the Algerian plane. The wreck has been located...50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Burkina Faso border" in the Malian region of Gossi, General Gilbert Diendiere of the Burkina Faso army said, as quoted by AFP. "Sadly, the team saw no one on site. It saw no survivors," said Diendiere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, and the head of the crisis committee set up to coordinate the search operation.
rt.comQuist-Arcton reports that a presidential aide in neighboring Burkina Faso says the remains of the missing aircraft have been found just across the border in Mali, in an isolated area about 60 miles south of the town of Gao. Gen. Gilbert Diendere, who heads the crisis committee set up by Burkina to investigate the crash, says with Malian government agreement, and local assistance, rescuers found the burned out plane and human remains.
npr.orgShepherds near the Malian desert town of Gossi told local officials that they had witnessed the crash from a distance in the early hours of Thursday. “The shepherds saw the plane fall,” Louis Berthaud, the deputy mayor of Gossi, said Thursday night.
nytimes.com
The MD-83 Aircraft Was Carrying 110 Passengers And 6 Crew Members
A screengrab of the homepage of the Ouagadougou airport's Internet site (http://www.aeroport-ouagadougou.com) shows a map displaying AH5017's last contact zone, July 24, 2014.
Image via themalaysianinsider.comThe plane was carrying 110 passengers and 6 crew members, Air Algerie sales manager Zoheir Houaoui was reported as saying.
themalaysianinsider.com
The passenger manifest includes 50 people from France; 24 from Burkina Faso; eight Lebanese; six Algerians; five Canadians; four Germans; two from Luxembourg; one from Mali; one Cameroonian; one Belgian; one Ukrainian; one Romanian; one Swiss; one Nigerian; and one Egyptian. CNN reported Houaoui as saying that the six crew members were Spanish.
themalaysianinsider.com
Al-Jazeera says the airplane is operated by Air Algerie and owned by the Spanish private company Swiftair.
npr.org24 July: Algerian Aviation Officer Says Air Algerie Plane #AH5017 Has Crashed
An Air Algerie flight crashed on Thursday en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers with 110 passengers on board, an Algerian aviation official said.
reuters.com
There were few clear indications of what might have happened to the aircraft, or whether there were casualties, but Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago said it asked to change route at 0138 GMT because of a storm in the area.
yahoo.com"I can confirm that it has crashed," the Algerian official told Reuters, declining to be identified or give any details about what had happened to the aircraft on its way north.
reuters.com
Almost half of the passengers were French citizens, an airline official said.
Two French Fighter Jets Based In The Region Have Been Dispatched To Try To Locate The Plane Along Its Probable Route
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Niger security sources said planes were flying over the border region with Mali to search for the flight. Algeria's state news agency APS said authorities lost contact with flight AH 5017 an hour after it took off from Burkina Faso, but other officials gave differing accounts of the times of contact, adding to confusion about the plane's fate.
reuters.com
Swiftair, the private Spanish company that owns the plane, confirmed it had lost contact with the MD-83 operated by Air Algerie, which it said was carrying 110 passengers and six crew.
theverge.com
A diplomat in the Malian capital Bamako said that the north of the country - which lies on the plane's likely flight path - was struck by a powerful sandstorm overnight.
reuters.com
Earlier, The Air Algerie Flight AH5017 Lost Contact With Algeria An Hour Into The Flight To Algiers
Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has lost contact with one of its planes flying from Burkina Faso.
Algerian aviation authorities have lost contact with an Air Algerie aircraft en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers, about 50 minutes after take-off, the APS state news agency reported on Thursday.
reuters.com
All The Passengers On The Plane Were In Transit, Either For Europe, The Middle East Or Canada
An Air Algerie representative in Burkina Faso, Kara Terki, told a news conference that the passenger list included 50 French, 24 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, four Algerians, two from Luxembourg, one Belgian, one Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian, one Ukrainian and one Romanian. Lebanese officials said there were at least 10 Lebanese citizens on the flight.
reuters.com
Whatever The Cause, Another Plane Crash Is Very Likely To Add To Nerves In The Industry And Flyers After MH17 Was Downed Over Ukraine On 17 July And TransAsia Airways Crashed Off Taiwan During A Thunderstorm On 23 July
Swiftair said on its website the aircraft took off from Burkina Faso at 0117 GMT and was supposed to land in Algiers at 0510 GMT but never reached its destination. An Algerian aviation official said the last contact Algerian authorities had with the missing Air Algerie aircraft was at 0155 GMT when it was flying over Gao, Mali.
reuters.com
Swiftair Has A Relatively Clean Safety Record, With Five Accidents Since 1977, Two Of Which Caused A Total Of Eight Deaths
Air Algerie's last major accident was in 2003 when one of its planes crashed shortly after take-off from the southern city of Tamanrasset, killing 102 people. In February this year, 77 people died when an Algerian military transport plane crashed into a mountain in eastern Algeria.
theverge.com