Algeria Plane Wreckage Found In Mali

Algerian Plane Wreckage Found

The wreckage of a missing Air Algerie passenger plane that disappeared from radar on Thursday has been found in Mali, officials say.

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

According to Gen. Gilbert, the plane was totally burnt-out and the remains were scattered on the ground. No survivors have yet been discovered. The plane which was carrying 110 passengers and 6 crew members was travelling from Burkina Faso’s capital city Ouagadougou to the Algerian capital Algiers. It was recorded to have left Ouagadougou at 1:17am GMT and disappeared just 50 minutes into the flight.

Shortly after take-off around 1:30am GMT the AH5017 pilot had contacted Niger’s control tower in Niamey to change course because of a sandstorm, authorities say.

The plane’s passenger list according to Burkina Faso’s transport minister Jean Bertin Ouedrago included 51 French citizens, 27 people from Burkina Faso, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, and four Germans, two from Luxemburg, one Cameroonian, 1 Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Swiss, one Nigerian and one Malian.

The Algerian plane crush affirms a week of aviation disasters with two other crashes having taken place. The 23^rd of July saw the Taiwan domestic flight GE222 TransAsia Airways crash in Taiwan’s Penghu archipelago, after a failed attempt to land at Magong airport due to stormy weather caused by Typhoon Matmo. The death toll has risen to 48 and 10 other people injured. No crew members survived.

The genesis of the week’s air disasters was eight days ago, the 17^th of July when Malaysian Airline MH17 was struck down by a war missile in Ukraine killing all 298 passengers and crew on board. Different nationals were on-board including the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia and the UK. Investigations are still underway as to who was responsible for the strike-down in an area that has been a war zone between Russia and Ukraine in the last few months.

In a related incident, a Malaysian airline MH370 which was travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the 8^th of March this year disappeared from radar on the South China Sea.Despite the multi-national search effort which became the largest and most expensive in history, no wreckage or bodies have yet been found. The Boeing 777-200ER was carrying 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations.