Plane crashes after going off radar

Air Algerie says it has lost contact with one of its aircraft after it took off from Burkina Faso.

No sign ... a plane has lost contact with air traffic controllers from Algeria. Picture: Remy de la Mauviniere Source: AP

AN Air Algerie flight that went missing en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers with 119 people on board has crashed in Mali, officials say.

"I can confirm that it has crashed," an Algerian official told Reuters, declining to give details of where the plane was or what caused the accident.

The wreckage has reportedly been found 70kms from Gao, according to an airport official.

The airport's Facebook page said former Cuban leader Fidel Castro's niece, Mariela, was among the passengers but that has not been confirmed.

Flight AH5017 took off at 1:17am local time (11:15am AEST) but vanished about 50 minutes after it left Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso on its way to Algiers, Algeria. Burkina Faso's Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said its pilots had asked to change route about 21 minutes after takeoff after reporting heavy rains.

The plane was due to land in the Algerian capital at 5:10am local time (2:10pm AEST), but the flight was missing for hours before the news was made public.

Aviation sources said the aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased from Spanish company Swiftair carrying passengers of different nationalities including French and Spanish nationals.

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.

Seeking answers ... Journalists gather outside the Swiftair offices in Madrid, Spain. Source: AP

PASSENGERS FROM AFRICA, EUROPE, CANADA AND LEBANON

Burkina Faso's transport minister said 50 French nationals were among those on-board, along with 24 Burkina Faso nationals, six Lebanese, five Canadians, four Algerians, two Luxembourg nationals, one Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian.

Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo also said the plane sent its last message around 0130 GMT (9:30pm EDT), asking Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rains in the area.

France's Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said after a government meeting that top civil aviation officials were holding an emergency meeting and a crisis cell had been set up.

Sad day ... The logos of Algerian airline company Air Algerie and Spanish transport company Swiftair following the disappearance of an Air Algerie MD-83 operated aircracaft over Africa. Source: AFP

PLANE DISAPPEARED IN MALI AIRSPACE

Earlier reports had said the plane was a DC-9.

"The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500 kilometres from the Algerian border. Several nationalities are among the victims," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was cited as saying by Algerian radio.

An Air Algerie source earlier said contact was lost while the airliner was still in Malian airspace and approaching the border with Algeria. Its destination was the capital, Algiers.

Air Algerie said the company initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

The official Algerian news agency said air navigation services lost track of the plane early on Thursday (11.55am AEST).

The flight path of Flight AH5017 from Ouagadougou, the capital of the west African nation of Burkina Faso, to Algiers was not immediately clear.

Ougadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north.

CONFLICTING REPORTS

There were conflicting reports about the plane, with the International Business Times stating that the plane had crashed in Niger due to bad weather.

"The flight was said to have been found near Niamey, the capital of Niger," the report stated.

The Air Algerie source said contact with the plane was lost after it changed course.

"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," the source said.

UNSTABLE SITUATION IN MALI

Despite an 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.

Passers-by walk past the Air Algerie company office, on the Opera Avenue in Paris. The French transport minister said there may have been 50 French nationals on the plane. Picture: Remy de la Mauviniere Source: AP

ANOTHER AIR DISASTER FOR ALGERIA?

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 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 midair 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.

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