Air Algerie Plane Wreckage Found In Mali

The wreckage of an Air Algerie flight which vanished from radar in West Africa has been discovered in southern Mali - but no survivors have yet been found, authorities have said.

Burkina Faso's commander in chief Gilbert Diendere said the burnt-out wreckage of flight AH5017 was found south of the Mali town of Gao.

Local Malian authorities in the nearby town of Gossi also told Reuters the wreckage had been located there.

General Diendere the search team had gone from Burkina Faso to Mali to follow up on information they had received about the possible crash location.

Families of the 116 people onboard wait for news

He said: "The team went to meet, first of all, our informers and bring our informers on the crash site. And indeed, the mission found, on the site, pieces of the plane, this team found on the site, sadly, remains of dead bodies.

"We were not able to evaluate exactly what is the situation as night began to fall and this team has confirmed that it has seen the remains of the plane, totally burned out and scattered on the ground."

Minister of communications Alain Edouard Traore described the accident as the greatest tragedy in the country's air history.

AH5017 left Ouagadougou airport at 1.17am local time. Pic: Sputniktilt

He said President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has declared two days of national mourning, is due to visit the crash site today.

The Air Algerie jet, which was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, was travelling from Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou to the Algerian capital Algiers when it disappeared around 50 minutes into the flight.

Earlier, France's foreign minister Laurent Fabius said authorities believed the aircraft may have encountered bad weather after the pilot requested to change direction shortly after take-off due to a storm.

However, he said no theories had been excluded.

The twin-engined MD-83 carries 168 people

Burkina Faso's transport minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago said the plane's passenger list included 51 French citizens.

Also on the jet were 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian.

The six crew members were Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

Flight AH5017 is owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 had been missing for hours before news of its disappearance was made public.

Ouagadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, separated by Mali where unrest continues in the north of the country.

Airlines had been warned not to fly over Mali in recent days, Sky News understands.

However, a senior French official said it is unlikely that fighters in Mali could shoot down a plane.

They are known to have shoulder-fired weapons which could not hit an aircraft travelling at a cruising altitude of some 33,000ft.

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