An Air Algerie flight with 110 passengers onboard, nearly half of them French citizens, crashed yesterday after the jet disappeared over northern Mali en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers, an Algerian official said.
There were few clear indications of what might have happened to flight AH5017, or whether there were casualties, but Burkina Faso’s Transport Minister said the crew asked to adjust their route at 0138 GMT because of a storm in the area.
“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.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the Air Algerie flight was still missing, but had probably crashed.
“Despite intensive search efforts no trace of the aircraft has yet been found,” Fabius told journalists in Paris. “The plane probably crashed.”
French President Francois Hollande cancelled a planned visit to overseas territories and said all military means on the ground would be used to locate the aircraft.
Two French Mirage warplanes have been scouring the vast desert area around the northern Malian city of Gao for the aircraft, which had 51 French nationals on board.
“The search will take as long as needed,” Hollande told reporters. “Everything must be done to find this plane. We cannot identify the causes of what happened,” he said.
Niger security sources said planes were flying over the border region with Mali to search for the flight.
Two Mali-based diplomats said in addition to the area around Gao, where the plane is believed to have last been in contact with authorities, searcher were also scouring the rugged region around Aguelhoc towards the Algerian borders.
An aid worker in Mali who asked not to be named said his organisation had received several calls from residents based in the villages of Tessalit and Tinzawaten in the northeastern region of Kidal after hearing a loud explosion.
It was not immediately clear if this was linked to the crash.
But searching in northern Mali will be complex task.
The area where the flight is suspected to have crashed is a vast, sparsely inhabited region of scrubland and desert dunes stretching to the foothills of the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.
It is a stronghold of Tuareg separatist rebels, who rose up against the government in early 2012, triggering an Islamist revolt that briefly seized control of northern Mali.
Security sources said the French military was leading the search in the difficult terrain. The Malian government, which is holding talks with the separatists in neighbouring Algeria, has only a weak presence in the region and relies on French and UN peacekeepers for aircraft and logistical support.
Whatever the cause, another plane crash is likely to add to nerves over flying after a Malaysia Airlines plane was downed over Ukraine last week, a TransAsia Airways crashed off Taiwan during a thunderstorm on Wednesday and airlines temporarily cancelled flights into Tel Aviv due to the conflict in Gaza.
Algeria’s state news agency APS said authorities lost contact with flight 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.