IN THE latest incident in what could be one of the worst weeks for the aviation industry, an Air Algerie flight that had lost contact with authorities has now been found crashed in Mali.
On board Flight AH5017 were 51 French nationals, 24 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, six Spanish, five Canadians, four Germans and two Luxembourg nationals, reports AFP. Passengers were reportedly in transit to Europe, the Middle East or Canada.
The MD-83 aircraft was leased from Spain’s Swiftair, and had been manned by a six-member Spanish crew.
The French president’s office said the jet, found 50km north of the Burkina Faso border in the Malian region of Gossi, clearly belongs to Air Algerie despite having “disintegrated”.
Flight AH5017 was bound for Algiers from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso when it asked to change route at 01.38 GMT due to a storm in the area, and became uncontactable shortly after, said the AFP article.
Teams from Mali, Algeria, Niger and France joined forces under French leadership to conduct a search for the aircraft.
The fatal Air Algerie crash is the latest in a string of bad news for the airlines industry, which within the past seven days alone saw Malaysia Airlines’ MH17 gunned down over Ukraine (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 22, 2014), TransAsia Airways crashing in Taiwan (TTG Asia e-Daily,July 24, 2014) and a temporary ban on flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed within a mile of Ben Gurion airport (TTG Asia e-Daily, July 24, 2014).
