This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/africa/air-controllers-lose-contact-with-algeria-bound-plane.html

The article has changed 12 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 7 Version 8
Air Algérie Plane Missing in Sahara With 116 Aboard Wreckage of Air Algérie Plane, Carrying 116 People, Found in Mali
(about 2 hours later)
PARIS — A jetliner with 116 people on board disappeared early Thursday on an overnight flight across the Sahara from Burkina Faso to Algeria, and officials said it had probably crashed. DAKAR, Senegal — An Air Algérie jetliner with 116 people on board crashed early Thursday in a remote area of Mali near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger, officials said.
President François Hollande of France, whose citizens made up nearly half the passengers on the plane, said his country would mobilize “all its resources,” civilian and military, to find the missing jet, Air Algérie Flight 5017. “The search will last as long as it takes, even through the night,” Mr. Hollande said in televised remarks Thursday evening after an emergency cabinet meeting. Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, the coordinator of the Burkina Faso government’s crisis unit for the missing jet, confirmed late on Thursday that soldiers had found the wreckage of the plane in a semidesert area about 60 miles south of Gao, Mali.
“We found no survivors,” General Diendéré said. “Someone saw the plane fall and alerted us, so we sent a mission there that went to the spot. But we couldn’t examine the wreck because night was falling.” He said the wrecked plane would be examined on Friday.
The general said the crash “must have been because of the weather — there were a lot of storms, and there was lightning.”
Col. Gilles Jaron, a spokesman for the French Army, which dispatched warplanes from a base in West Africa to search for the plane, said late Thursday that he could not confirm that any wreckage had been located. “We are continuing the search,” he said.
Flight 5017, took off around 1 a.m. from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, on an overnight run to Algiers. Air controllers lost contact with the plane, an MD-83, less than an hour after takeoff, officials said.
The crash comes at a time when the aviation industry is already reeling from the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last Thursday, the crash of TransAsia Airways Flight 222 in Taiwan on Wednesday and the suspension of flights to and from Tel Aviv this week because of rocket fire from Gaza. The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on American flights to Israel overnight.
The Air Algérie plane’s usual route northward would have taken it over large desert areas where Islamic militant groups have been active, including northern Mali, which was overrun by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate in 2012. When French and African troops drove the militants back out of towns there last year, the militants left behind stacks of manuals explaining in detail how to use SA-7a and SA-7b shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, which can shoot down an airliner flying low for takeoff or landing. But those militants are not known to possess heavier weapons that could strike an aircraft at cruising altitude.
During the day on Thursday, many officials were at pains to say only that the plane was missing, though the operating assumption all day was that it had crashed.
Nearly half the passengers on the plane were from France, which once ruled the region as a colonial power and which still has extensive political and economic interests and a military presence in West Africa. President François Hollande canceled a trip to the French island territories of Reunion, Comoros and Mayotte and called his cabinet together in Paris for an emergency meeting Thursday afternoon, saying that France would mobilize “all its resources,” civilian and military, to find the missing jet.
“We still don’t know what happened,” he said. “What we know is that the crew signaled at 1:48 a.m. that it was changing direction because of a particularly difficult weather situation.”“We still don’t know what happened,” he said. “What we know is that the crew signaled at 1:48 a.m. that it was changing direction because of a particularly difficult weather situation.”
The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said, “The search is taking place in a vast zone in Mali in the region of Gao.” The Burkina Faso government said that the aircraft’s last contact with ground control came a few minutes after it had passed northward out of the country’s air space. It said the crew contacted air traffic controllers in Niamey, Niger, at 1:47 a.m. local time, and informed them that the plane had encountered rough weather.
A government minister in Mali who was briefed on the plane’s disappearance said it was clear that the aircraft had crashed. “It’s been more than 12 hours since our last contact with the plane,” said the minister, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. “It’s obviously gone down — the question is where?” Residents of northern Mali reported a heavy sandstorm overnight. “There was a lot of damage from the wind, especially in the region of Kidal,” said Kata Data Alhousseini Maiga, an official with the United Nations mission in Gao, Mali. “The sand was so thick that you couldn’t see.”
Still, Frédéric Cuvillier, the French transport minister, told reporters Thursday afternoon that “at this moment, the plane is still missing,” and added, “we have no confirmation at this point” that it had crashed. Mr. Hollande likewise referred to the aircraft as “missing.” Moumouni Barro, Burkina Faso’s director of airports, said in a telephone interview from Ouagadougou that a resident of Gossi, a village in Mali between Mopti and Gao, near the border with Burkina Faso, “saw the plane fall from the sky” southeast of the town during a storm around 1:50 a.m.
The disappearance of the plane comes at a time when the aviation industry is already reeling from the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last Thursday, the crash of TransAsia Airways Flight 222 in Taiwan on Wednesday and the suspension of flights to and from Tel Aviv this week because of rocket fire from Gaza. The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on American flights to Israel overnight. The deputy mayor of Gossi, Louis Berthaud, said in a telephone interview: “People saw the plane fall. It was shepherds. About 65 miles from here. The shepherds saw the plane fall.”
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the Air Algérie plane, a Boeing MD-83, sometime before 2 a.m. local time on Thursday, less than an hour after it took off from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, bound for Algiers, officials and news agency reports said.
The plane’s usual route northward would have taken it over large desert areas where Islamic militant groups have been active, including northern Mali, which was overrun by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate in 2012. When French and African troops drove the militants back out of towns there last year, the militants left behind stacks of manuals explaining in detail how to use SA-7a and SA-7b shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, which can shoot down an airliner flying low for takeoff or landing. But those militants are not known to possess heavier weapons that could strike an aircraft at cruising altitude.
Early guesses about the cause of the disappearance focused instead on bad weather in the region. Residents of northern Mali reported a heavy sandstorm overnight. “There was a lot of damage from the wind, especially in the region of Kidal,” said Kata Data Alhousseini Maiga, an official with the United Nations mission in Gao, Mali. “The sand was so thick that you couldn’t see.”
Moumouni Barro, Burkina Faso’s director of airports, said in a telephone interview from Ouagadougou that a resident of Gossi, a village in Mali between Mopti and Gao, near the border with Burkina Faso, “saw the plane fall from the sky” southeast of the town around 1:50 a.m., during a storm. Mr. Barro said the resident’s account was credible and that searchers were at work in the area.
Gen. Gilbert Diendiere, coordinator of the Burkina Faso government’s crisis unit for the missing jet, told Agence France-Presse, “We believe this information is accurate, as we have compared it to radar images showing the flight path until the plane disappeared.”
However, other people in Gossi, including the town’s mayor, who were reached by telephone Thursday afternoon could not confirm that the plane had been seen coming down near there.
Earlier, the government of Burkina Faso issued a statement saying that “search and rescue teams from Burkina, Mali, Niger and Algeria, in collaboration with France, have been activated in northern Mali.” And the Malian official said the country was sending soldiers to the region where the plane was flying. “It’s a deserted zone, so it could take some time” to get there, the official said.
Two French Mirage 2000 fighter jets that were on patrol over northern Mali were diverted to try to locate the plane as well, according to Col. Gilles Jarron, a French Army spokesman. “They are in the air, searching the area between its last known destination along its most probable route,” Colonel Jarron said Thursday afternoon.
The plane belonged to a Spanish company, Swiftair, and was operated by Air Algérie. Swiftair confirmed in a statement that it had lost contact with the plane, and said it was carrying 110 passengers and a crew of six.The plane belonged to a Spanish company, Swiftair, and was operated by Air Algérie. Swiftair confirmed in a statement that it had lost contact with the plane, and said it was carrying 110 passengers and a crew of six.
The Burkina Faso government statement said that the aircraft’s last contact with ground control came a few minutes after it had passed northward out of the country’s air space. The crew contacted air traffic controllers in Niamey, Niger, at 1:47 a.m. local time, informing them that the plane had encountered rough weather, the statement said.
Officials gave slightly varying counts of the nationalities of the passengers on the flight during the day. The government statement listed 51 French citizens, 27 people from Burkina Faso, 8 Lebanese, 6 Algerians, 5 Canadians, 4 Germans, 2 people from Luxembourg, and one each from Switzerland, Belgium, Egypt, Ukraine, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali. Lebanese officials gave a higher figure, 10, for their citizens on the plane, and the Spanish pilots’ union said all six crew members were Spanish, news agencies reported.Officials gave slightly varying counts of the nationalities of the passengers on the flight during the day. The government statement listed 51 French citizens, 27 people from Burkina Faso, 8 Lebanese, 6 Algerians, 5 Canadians, 4 Germans, 2 people from Luxembourg, and one each from Switzerland, Belgium, Egypt, Ukraine, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali. Lebanese officials gave a higher figure, 10, for their citizens on the plane, and the Spanish pilots’ union said all six crew members were Spanish, news agencies reported.
Swiftair said on Thursday that the missing jet, bearing the tail number EC-LTV, was built by McDonnell Douglas in 1996. The company, which merged with Boeing in 1997, stopped building MD-80 the following year, but hundreds of the aircraft remain in wide use around the world. According to Ascend, an aviation consultancy in London, Swiftair owns five MD-83 jets, and leased two of them to Air Algérie in June. Swiftair said on Thursday that the jet, bearing the tail number EC-LTV, was built by McDonnell Douglas in 1996. The company, which merged with Boeing in 1997, stopped building the MD-80 series of planes the following year, but hundreds of the aircraft remain in wide use around the world. According to Ascend, an aviation consultancy in London, Swiftair owns five MD-83 jets, and leased two of them to Air Algérie in June.
Air Algérie’s last major accident was in 2003, when Flight 6289, a Boeing 737, crashed shortly after takeoff from Tamanrasset in southern Algeria on its way to Algiers. Mechanical failure was blamed for the crash, which killed 102 people. More recently, an Algerian C-130 Hercules military transport plane bound for Constantine in the northeast crashed into a mountainside in February, killing 77 of the 78 people on board. Strong winds and poor visibility were blamed.Air Algérie’s last major accident was in 2003, when Flight 6289, a Boeing 737, crashed shortly after takeoff from Tamanrasset in southern Algeria on its way to Algiers. Mechanical failure was blamed for the crash, which killed 102 people. More recently, an Algerian C-130 Hercules military transport plane bound for Constantine in the northeast crashed into a mountainside in February, killing 77 of the 78 people on board. Strong winds and poor visibility were blamed.