Air Algerie Plane Disappears From Radar — 116 On Board

DINA SPECTOR 

 JUL. 24, 2014, 7:14 PM

Wikimedia Commons

A flight chartered by Air Algerie has disappeared from radar en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers, Associated Press reports.

Air navigation services lost track of flight AH5017 about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa.

Alegerian authorities say the plane was flying over Gao, Mali, when last contact occurred.

The aircraft, a Swiftair MD83, is carrying 110 passengers and 6 crew members. The crewmembers, two pilots and four in the cabin, are Spanish nationals while reports suggest that multiple nationalities were on the flight.

A diplomat in the Malian capital Bamako said that the north of the country – which lies on the plane’s likely flight path - told Reuters that the plane was struck by a powerful sandstorm overnight.

Weather Channel digital meteorologist Nick Wiltgen tweeted this infrared image of the weather conditions when contact was lost.

Weather Channel

“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,” an Air Algerie employee told AFP. ”Contact was lost after the change of course.”

Flight AH5017 flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

A straight flight path would have the plane passing over Mali, where Islamic insurgents took over the north of the country following a 2012 military coup. A senior French official told AP it was unlikely that fighters in Mali had weaponry that could shoot down a plane flying at that altitude.

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Flight AH 5017 operated by Air Algerie was headed for Algiers. This is not the confirmed route.