An Air Algeria flight en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers has crashed, an Algerian aviation official told Reuters.
“I can confirm that it has crashed,” said the official to Reuters.
Before that, Burkino Faso Transport Minister, Jean Bertin Ouedrago said the aircraft had asked to change route at 0138 GMT (9.38 p.m. EDT) because of a storm in the area.
Reuters also reported that half of the plane’s passengers were French nationals.
Quoting a French army spokesman, Reuters reported that two French fighter jets based in the region have been dispatched to try to locate the plane.
Algerian radio said 51 French citizens and 26 from Burkina Faso were among the 116 passengers on the plane which dropped off the radar as it overflew northern Mali.
Apart from seven Algerians, nationals from Canada, Ukraine and Luxembourg were also on board, it said.
An official source in Lebanon said at least 20 of its nationals were also on the flight, including three couples with 10 children.
Aviation sources told AFP the aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased from Spanish company Swiftair.
Its six-member crew were all Spanish, said Spain's airline pilots' union Sepla, while Swiftair confirmed the aircraft had gone missing less than an hour after takeoff from Ouagadougou.
France's Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said that top civil aviation officials were holding an emergency meeting and a crisis cell had been set up.
"The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Algerian border. Several nationalities are among the victims," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was cited as saying by Algerian radio.
In neighbouring Mali, amid reports of heavy storms in the region, the prime minister's office also said contact was lost around Gao over the country's restive north.
Northern Mali was seized by jihadist groups for several months in 2012 and the region has remained unstable despite the Islamists being driven out in a French-led offensive.
Despite international military intervention still under way, the situation remains unstable in northern Mali, which was seized by jihadist groups for several months in 2012.
On July 17, the Bamako government and armed groups from northern Mali launched tough talks in Algiers aimed at securing an elusive peace deal, and with parts of the country still mired in conflict.
'Contact lost'
"The plane was not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route," an airline source said.
"Contact was lost after the change of course."
The carrier, in a statement carried by national news agency APS, said it initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.
One of Algeria's worst air disasters occurred in February this year, when a C-130 military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in poor weather in the mountainous northeast, killing more than 70 people.
The plane was flying from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in Algeria's deep south to Constantine, 320 kilometres (200 miles) east of Algiers.
Tamanrasset was the site of the country's worst ever civilian air disaster, in March 2003.
In that accident, all but one of 103 people on board were killed when an Air Algerie passenger plane crashed on takeoff after one of its engines caught fire.
The sole survivor, a young Algerian soldier, was critically injured.
In December 2012, two Algerian military jets on a routine training mission collided in mid-air near Tlemcen in the northwest, killing both pilots.
A month earlier, a twin-turboprop CASA C-295 military transport aircraft, which was carrying a cargo of paper for the printing of banknotes in Algeria, crashed in southern France.
The five soldiers and one central bank representative on board were all killed.
Agencies
Thu Jul 24 2014
An Air Algeria flight en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers has crashed, an Algerian aviation official told Reuters
Palestin perlukan 14 tahun untuk dibangunkan semula
Jumlah besar runtuhan akibat serangan dilakukan tentera Israel di Semenanjung Gaza mengambil tempoh sekurang-kurangnya 14 tahun untuk dibersihkan.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
Delegasi seluruh dunia pulang selepas misi ditangguh
Delegasi seluruh dunia dan Malaysia dijangka bergerak pulang ke negara masing-masing dalam waktu terdekat.
Ia selepas Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) mengumumkan penangguhan terbaharu misi Break the Siege Freedom Flotilla to Gaza pada Sabtu.
Rakan setugas Syaff Shukri dan jurukamera Ab Uzza Ab Latiff ada perinciannya.
#AWANI745
Ia selepas Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) mengumumkan penangguhan terbaharu misi Break the Siege Freedom Flotilla to Gaza pada Sabtu.
Rakan setugas Syaff Shukri dan jurukamera Ab Uzza Ab Latiff ada perinciannya.
#AWANI745
PRK N06 KKB: Kerajaan Perpaduan akan dibebani dengan isu semasa - Muhyiddin
Pilihan Raya Kecil Kuala Kubu Baharu kali ini akan menyaksikan Kerajaan Perpaduan ‘dibebani’ dengan isu-isu semasa yang dilihat membebankan rakyat, tegas bekas Perdana Menteri yang juga Pengerusi Perikatan Nasional, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
Tangkapan anak MB Perlis, tidak jejas sokongan
Tangkapan ke atas anak Menteri Besar Perlis, Mohd Shukri Ramli dan lima lagi individu oleh Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM) bagi membantu siasatan berhubung tuntutan palsu berjumlah RM600,000 tidak menjejaskan perjalanan Pilihan Raya Kecil Kuala Kubu Bharu yang ditandingi Perikatan Nasional.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
PRK N06 KKB: UMNO, BN dukung calon PH demi Kerajaan Perpaduan – Ahmad Zahid
UMNO dan Barisan Nasional berpegang kepada prinsip mendokong calon yang mewakili Kerajaan Perpaduan, iaitu Pang Sock Tao, biarpun beliau berasal daripada parti DAP yang pernah menjadi seteru mereka satu ketika dulu.
#AWANI745
#AWANI745
Wanita lintas jalan direman dua hari
Pemandu SUV yang melintas jalan dan menyebabkan kemalangan, yang meragut nyawa seorang penunggang motosikal berkuasa tinggi direman dua hari.
Genting Malaysia nafi bincang mengenai kasino di Forest City
Genting Malaysia Bhd (Genting Malaysia) hari ini menafikan sebarang penglibatan dalam perbincangan mengenai pengoperasian kasino di Forest City, Johor.
AWANI Borneo [27/04/2024] - Peruntukan RM60 juta | GPS tumpu Sarawak | Risiko hilang kerusi
Laporan berita padat dan ringkas dari Borneo bersama Assim Hassan;
#AWANIBorneo 27 April 2024
Tertangguh lama, SMK Sebuyau bakal berwajah baharu
Sah! GPS tidak terlibat kempen PRK Kuala Kubu Bharu
MoU PBS dan STAR elak pertembungan calon dalam PRN Sabah
#AWANInews
#AWANIBorneo 27 April 2024
Tertangguh lama, SMK Sebuyau bakal berwajah baharu
Sah! GPS tidak terlibat kempen PRK Kuala Kubu Bharu
MoU PBS dan STAR elak pertembungan calon dalam PRN Sabah
#AWANInews
Pemain Astro Kem Badminton berpeluang berlatih dengan jurulatih dari BAM
Menurut Ketua Jurulatih Astro Kem Badminton 2024, Lee Wan Wah latihan intensif selama 5 hari itu merupakan satu peluang terbaik untuk pemain merasai pengalaman berlatih seperti untuk mewakili negara.
U Mobile buka kedai pertama di Sabah
Kedai pertama U Mobile di Sabah terletak di Imago Shopping Mall dan menawarkan pelbagai perkhidmatan seperti talian pra bayad dan pasca bayar U Borneo.
#AWANIBorneo
#AWANIBorneo
Tiada warga Malaysia terbabit nahas pesawat Air Algerie - Wisma Putra
Tiada rakyat Malaysia dilaporkan terbabit dalam kejadian pesawat Air Algerie yang dilaporkan terhempas, menurut Wisma Putra.
Bangkai pesawat Air Algerie ditemui di Mali
Bangkai pesawat Air Algerie yang hilang pada Khamis ditemui di Mali berdekatan sempadan Burkina Faso.
Pesawat Air Algerie yang hilang telah terhempas, lapor Reuters
Sebuah pesawat Air Algerie dari Burkina Faso ke Algiers telah terhempas, lapor Reuters.