Air Algerie plane disappears from radar (update)

0

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — An Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria’s capital
disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali after heavy rains were reported, according to
the plane’s owner and government officials in France and Burkina Faso.
Air navigation services lost track of the MD-83 about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou, the
capital of Burkina Faso, at 0155 GMT (9:55 p.m. EDT Wednesday), the official Algerian news agency APS
said.
The list of passengers includes 51 French, 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, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo
said. The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots’ union.
The plane sent its last message around 0130 GMT (9:30 p.m. EDT), asking Niger air control to change its
route because of heavy rains in the area, Ouedraogo said.
French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said the plane vanished over northern Mali. He spoke
Thursday from a crisis center set up in the French Foreign Ministry. Cuvillier didn’t specify exactly
where the plane disappeared over Mali, or whether it was in an area controlled by rebels.
But Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Algerian state television said that 10 minutes
before disappearing, it was in contact with air traffic controllers in Gao, a city essentially under the
control of the Malian government, though it has seen lingering separatist violence.
The plane had been missing for hours before the news was made public. It wasn’t immediately clear why
airline or government officials didn’t make it public earlier.
Air Algerie Flight 5017 was being operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, the company said in a statement.
The Spanish pilots’ union said the plane belonged to Swiftair.
The flight path of the plane from Ouagadougou to Algiers wasn’t immediately clear. Ouagadougou is in a
nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north.
Northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremists
following a military coup in 2012. A French-led intervention last year scattered the extremists, but the
Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government.
A senior French official said it seems unlikely that fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry that could
shoot down a plane.
The official, not authorized to speak publicly, said on condition of anonymity that they primarily have
shoulder-fired weapons — not enough to hit a passenger plane flying at cruising altitude.
Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, and left
Burkina Faso for Algiers at 0117 GMT Thursday (9:17 p.m. EDT Wednesday), but had not arrived at the
scheduled time of 0510 GMT (1:10 a.m. EDT Thursday).
Swiftair said it has not been possible to make contact with the plane and was trying to ascertain what
had happened. It said the crew included two pilots and four cabin staff.
“In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan,” APS quoted the airline as
saying.
The MD-83 is part of a series of jets built since the early 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, a U.S. plane
maker now owned by Boeing Co.
———
Brahima Ouedraogo reported from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Associated Press journalists Ciaran Giles in
Madrid, Spain, and Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, contributed to this report.

No posts to display