Air Algerie Flight Ah5017 Crashed In Northern Mali, President Says

[Spartan]

Air Algerie flight AH5017, en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers and carrying 116 people, crashed in northern Mali on Thursday, Mali's president told Reuters.

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said wreckage was spotted between northern towns of Aguelhoc and Kidal, according to the news service.

It's unclear what caused the crash, but here is what we know so far:

 

• Swiftair, the Spanish airline operated by Air Algerie, said it lost contact with MD83 aircraft — with 110 passengers and six crew members — about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of the west African nation. The four-hour flight was scheduled to arrive in Algiers at 5:40 a.m. local time.

 

• Agence France-Presse reported 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."

• Gen. Gilbert Diendiere, head of an emergency response unit in Ouagadougou, told AFP that a witness saw the plane "falling" in the Gossi region of northern Mali. "We are in contact with the witness and we intend to survey the site," Diendiere said.

• Burkino Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago told Reuters the aircraft was asked to change its route because of a storm in the area. There were powerful thunderstorms in the region around the time the plane went missing.

[nambiyar]

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