Algeria airliner missing on Sahara route from
Burkina Faso

Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has
lost contact with one of its planes flying from
Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara.
Algerian aviation officials said the plane had
crashed, but gave no further details.
Contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off
from Ouagadougou, Air Algerie said, as the plane
crossed Mali.
The airline said 50 French citizens were among
the 110 passengers and six crew on board Flight
AH 5017.
The pilot had contacted Niger's control tower in
Niamey to change course because of a storm,
officials say.
BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy
says the route is well used by French travellers .
The French military said it had sent two French
fighter jets based in West Africa to try to locate
the plane.
France's civil aviation body said crisis centres
had been set up at airports in Paris and Marseille.
The plane is operated by Air Algerie but chartered
from Spanish airline Swiftair.
An Air Algerie spokesman quoted by Reuters said
the provisional passenger list also included 24
people from Burkina Faso, eight Lebanese, four
Algerians, two from Luxembourg, one Belgian, one
Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian, one
Ukrainian and one Romanian.
The six crew members are Spanish, according to
the Spanish pilots' union.
A crisis centre has been set up in Charles de
Gaulle airport near Paris
The passenger plane had taken off from
Ouagadougou airport in Burkina Faso
Officials in Lebanon, however, said there were at
least 10 Lebanese citizens on the flight.
"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has
launched its emergency plan," Air Algerie officials,
quoted by APS news agency (in French), said.
Later, an Algerian official told Reuters: "I can
confirm that it has crashed."
However, he declined to give any details about
what had happened to the aircraft.
Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal
reportedly told Algerian radio: "The plane
disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500km (300 miles)
from the Algerian border."
Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin
Ouedraogo said the plane sent its last message at
around 01:30 GMT, asking air traffic controllers in
Niger to change its route because of heavy rain.
Bad weather
UN troops in Mali say they understand the plane
came down between Gao and Tessalit, the BBC's
Alex Duval Smith in the Malian capital Bamako
reports.
Brigadier General Koko Essien, who is leading the
UN troops, told the BBC that the area leading up
to the Algerian border was vast and sparsely
populated.
He added that weather in the area had been bad
overnight.
Armed groups are also said to be active in the
area. However, at the moment the most probable
scenario looks like a plane that came down in bad
weather, our correspondent adds.
In a statement (in Spanish) , Swiftair said that the
aircraft was an MD83 and that they were unable
to establish contact with it.
An Algerian official had previously told Reuters
that the plane was an Airbus A320.
An unnamed Air Algerie company source, speaking
to AFP news agency, said: "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."
"Contact was lost after the change of course."
Flight AH 5017 flies the Ouagadougou-Algiers
route four times a week, AFP reported.
French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier told
reporters that it was likely there were also many
French nationals on board the plane.
In February a military plane in Algeria crashed,
killing 77 people on board.
The Hercules C-130 crashed into a mountain in
Oum al-Bouaghi province, en route to
Constantine, in bad weather conditions. Only one
person on board survived.
McDonnell Douglas MD-83
Twin rear-engine, short-medium range airliner
More powerful version of the MD-80 type,
based on earlier DC-9
Range: 4,637km (2,881 miles)
Capacity: 172 passengers
First flew: 1984
http://bbc.com/news/world-africa-28460625