The wreckage of the Air Algerie flight AH5017 which crashed with 116 people on board, including more than 50 French nationals, has been discovered in Mali, west Africa, officials have said.
The office of French President François Hollande confirmed the announcement, saying in a message on its website the wreckage had been clearly identified despite the disintegration of the aircraft and a French military unit has been dispatched to secure the site and gather evidence. French investigators have now concluded the flight broke apart when it hit the ground, the Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio.
The office of French President François Hollande confirmed the announcement, saying in a message on its website the wreckage had been clearly identified despite the disintegration of the aircraft and a French military unit has been dispatched to secure the site and gather evidence. French investigators have now concluded the flight broke apart when it hit the ground, the Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio.
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He told the station: "We think the plane went down due to weather conditions, but no hypothesis can be excluded as long as we don't have the results of an investigation." The passenger plane was found about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the border of Burkina Faso, according to Burkina Faso authorities.
The plane, chartered by Spanish company Swiftair and operated by Algeria's flagship carrier, disappeared from radar 50 minutes after it took off from Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou at 1.17 GMT on Thursday. It was bound for Algiers in Algeria and was due to arrive at 5.10 GMT. Aviation officials lost contact with the plane at 1.55am GMT, shortly after its pilots contacted Niger's control tower in Niamey and requested to change course due to reported storms.
French Mirage fighter jets, UN peacekeepers and teams hunted for the wreckage of the MD-83 in the remote region. General Gilbert Diendere, a member of the crisis unit in Burkina Faso, said the Burkina Faso army had identified the crash site and his team of investigators had already inspected the wreckage.
"This team has confirmed that it has seen the remains of the plane, totally burned out and scattered on the ground," Mr Diendere told local television, adding human remains had also been discovered. He said he had no further information on the fate of passengers.
Burkina Faso authorities said the passenger list included 51 French, 27 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two from Luxembourg, one Cameroonian, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukranian, one Swiss, one Nigerian and one Malian. All six crew members were Spanish, according to Spain's pilot union.
Burkina Faso's government spokesman said the country will observe 48 hours of mourning. The President of Mali Ibrahima Boubacar Keita is due to visit the site of the crash today. Malian state television also said the debris of AH5017 was found in the village of Boulikessi and was found by a helicopter from Burkina Faso.
The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al-Qa'ida-linked Islamic extremists after a military coup in 2012. France deployed troops to Mali in January 2013 until July, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government. France agreed to keep troops in the region as part of a military operation to target Islamist extremists in the Sahel region.
Last week, the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine, and the US has blamed it on separatists firing a surface-to-air missile. Earlier this week, US and European airlines started canceling flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed near the city's airport. Finally, on Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.
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