A commercial jetliner which disappeared from radar over western Africa just 50 minutes after takeoff this morning, has crashed according to an Burkina Faso airport official.Air Algerie Flight 5017 left Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at 1:17 a.m. local time en route to Algiers, Algeria, but was last sited at 01:55. Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo told reporters its pilots asked for a route change due to heavy rains. Earlier, an Algerian official told reporters the plane lost contact over Gao, Mali.
An airport official says wreckage from the plane has been found in the neighboring Mali.
Ouagadougou is almost a straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali — a country with unrest in the north.
According to the company that services the flight, SwiftAir, there are 110 passengers on board and six crew members. The Associated Press reports the flight was carrying 51 French nationals, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, two Luxembourg nationals, and one each from Switzerland, Belgium, Egypt, Ukraine, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Mali.
SwiftAir released a statement, which you can read here.
This is the third aviation disaster in a week, following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed 298 people, and a TransAsia flight that crash-landed on a Taiwanese island Wednesday, killing 48.
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