Air Algerie AH5017 has reportedly crashed after about 50 minutes from takeoff in Ougadougou Mali. AH5017 was Algiers, Algeria and there were 116 on board
No Americans were on board, but according to Fox News, five Canadians, four Germans and 51 French were on the Air Algerie flight.
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| Air Algerie AH5017 crashes near Ougadougou Mali – 116 on board |
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The list of passengers includes 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said. The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots’ union.
A French Ministry of Defense official tells Fox News that the Air Algerie jet carrying 116 people that vanished from radar shortly after takeoff late Wednesday night has crashed in Mali, and that two French fighter jets have located the wreckage.
Air navigation services lost track of the Swiftair MD-83 roughly 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, at 9:55 p.m. ET Wednesday, the official Algerian news agency said.
France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told The Associated Press that the flight “probably crashed.”
The French Ministry of Defense official told Fox News that the plane went down near the Malian city of Gao, a city essentially under the control of the Malian government, though it has seen lingering separatist violence.