Air Algerie Flight AH 5017 Missing from Radar Flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara … 110 Passengers & 6 Crew on Board (Update: Plane Crash, No Survivors … Wreckage & Black Box Found)

Another plane has gone missing from radar …

The BBC is reporting that Air Algerie Flight AH 5017 has gone missing from radar during its flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers. According to reports, Air Algerie lost contact with the plane about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou. Spanish airline Swiftair stated that Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board. Air Algerie has announced that it has launched an emergency plan.

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.

Contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou, it said. The plane was last seen at 0155 GMT.

Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board, Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane, said.

The pilot had contacted Niger’s control tower in Niamey to change course because of a storm, correspondents say.

Algerian and French nationals are thought to be on board.

“In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan,” Air Algerie officials, quoted by APS news agency (in French), said.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal reportedly told Algerian radio: “The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Algerian border.”

UPDATE I: Reuters - Contact lost with Air Algerie plane carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso

Spanish private airline company Swiftair confirmed it had no contact with its MD-83 aircraft operated by Air Algerie, which it said was carrying 110 passengers and six crew.

The company said in a notice posted on its website that the aircraft took off from Burkina Faso at 0117 GMT (2117 ET) and was supposed to land in Algiers at 0510 GMT but never reached its destination.

UPDATE II: No survivors in Air Algerie crash, French president says.

French troops are headed to a remote area in Mali to secure the site of Thursday’s Air Algerie jet crash, the third major international aviation disaster in a week.

French President Francois Hollande announced Friday that there were no survivors in the crash of the MD-83 aircraft, which disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, for Algiers. The plane had requested permission to change course due to bad weather.

UPDATE III: France sends military to guard Air Algerie wreck; black box found.

French officials have dispatched a military unit to the crash site of an Air Algerie jet that crashed in Mali carrying 116 people after vanishing from radar shortly after takeoff late Wednesday night.

French president Francois Hollande announced Friday that there were no survivors in the crash of the aircraft which disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, for Algiers.

Speaking after a crisis meeting, Hollande also announced that one of the aircraft’s two black boxes has been found in the wreckage, in the Gossi region near the border with Burkina Faso. It is being taken to the northern Mali city of Gao.