Algerian airliner crashes in Mali with 116 on board, bodies seen at site

USPA News - An Air Algerie passenger plane flying from Burkina Faso to Algeria crashed in Mali on early Thursday morning, but the fate of the 116 passengers and crew on board remained unknown as rescue workers had not yet assessed the site, Burkinabe officials said. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft - owned by Spanish charter company Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie under flight number AH5017 - disappeared from radar about 50 minutes after it took off from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, at 0117 GMT. It was en-route to Algiers, Algeria, with 110 passengers and six crew members on board.

There were various reports of wreckage sightings throughout the day, but all were proven to be false until Burkinabe Prime Minister Luc-Adolphe Tiao said the wreckage had been located in Mali, south of Gao near the Mali-Burkina Faso border, late at night. He said bodies had been seen at the crash site. "A Burkinabe helicopter just located the wreckage of the plane," Tiao said. "Now that the plane was spotted, I want to say that Burkina Faso will participate in any mission of inquiry into the circumstances of the loss of the aircraft. We also sent teams to the site to help recover the bodies of our countrymen. And we will take all steps to repatriate them to Burkina Faso." It was not immediately known whether any of those on board had survived the crash, but a Burkinabe government official with knowledge of the situation said it appeared everyone had been killed. "The latest report indicates the plane was completely destroyed. Bodies have been seen. Likely everyone died in the accident," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Forecasters said the area in which the plane went down had seen severe storms overnight, though it was not yet known whether it played a role in the crash. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said contact with the plane was lost after the crew requested a change of course due to weather. "Everyone agrees that the weather conditions were dramatic," Tiao said. "In Burkina Faso, particularly near Dori, there were violent storms at that time." A list of nationalities released by Swiftair showed most of the passengers were from France, though Algerian officials said some of the passengers had dual nationality. The company listed the passengers as 50 French, 24 Burkinabe, 8 Lebanese, 6 Algerians, 5 Canadians, 4 Germans, 2 Luxembourgers, 1 Malian, 1 Belgian, 1 Nigerian, 1 Cameroonian, 1 Egyptian, 1 Ukrainian, 1 Romanian, and 1 Swiss national. All six crew members were from Spain. The nationalities of three passengers were still being verified. If rescue workers confirm no one survived Thursday`s accident, it would be the worst aviation disaster in Mali`s history, surpassing the crash of an Air Mali plane nearly three decades ago. The accident happened in February 1985 when an Antonov 24B aircraft went down near Timbuktu Airport, killing all but one of the 52 people on board.