• Air traffic lost track of plane over Mali 50 minutes after takeoff
• Plane had rerouted due to heavy rains shortly before contact lost
• Flight AH5017 had 116 on board at time, including up to 80 French
• All six crew members were Spanish employees of plane owner Swiftair
• Search operation under way on both sides of Mali-Niger border
Latest
16.00 French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has confirmed that there has been no trace of the missing plane yet.
"Despite intensive search efforts no trace of the aircraft has yet been
found," Fabius told journalists in Paris. "The plane probably crashed."
He added that French Mirage warplanes were scouring the area for the aircraft,
which had 51 French nationals on board.
15.49 Despite some reports that plane wreckage has been located, the
French foreign minister says the Air Algerie flight is still missing,
despite the ongoing search, and that it "probably" crashed.
15.21 No further details have been reported of the cause or location of
the apparent crash of AH5017.
However, a source in Niger has told The Telegraph that forces on both sides of the Mali-Niger border are currently searching for wreckage of the plane, without any success so far.
"They are seeking the flight in the east of Mali and in Niger," he said, citing a conversation with a Niger army colonel.
14.56 Though we do not know the cause of AH5017's disappearance and reported crash, the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington had explicity warned civil aircraft to avoid flying over Mali because of insurgent activity.
The Notice to Airmen - or NOTAM - read:
U.S. OPERATORS AND AIRMEN SHOULD AVOID OPERATING INTO, OUT OF, WITHIN OR OVER MALI AT OR BELOW FL240 DUE TO INSURGENT ACTIVITY. THERE IS RISK TO THE SAFETY OF U.S. CIVIL FLIGHTS OPERATING INTO, OUT OF, WITHIN OR OVER MALI FROM SMALL-ARMS, ROCKETPROPELLED GRENADES, ROCKETS AND MORTARS, AND ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIRE, TO INCLUDE SHOULDER-FIRED, MAN-PORTABLE AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS.
David Gleave, an aviation expert at Britain’s Loughborough University,
described the MD-83 as a "pretty solid airplane in general." He
added: "It flies fairly simply, pilots understand how it flies so it is
a solid, reliable workhorse … it is unlikely to be the flight crew didn't
understand the aircraft."
There have been three fatal accidents involving the MD 83 went into service in 1985. Three other aircraft have been written off following accidents, although there were no fatalities.
March 15 1999 - Korean Air
Aircraft damaged beyond repair after botched landing at Pohang, South Korea.
Jan 31 2000 - Alaska Airlines
All 88 people on board killed when plane nosedives into sea off California because of stabiliser problem. Attributed to poor lubrication.
Jan 8 2005 - Aero Republica
Plane written off after aircraft overruns runway on landing in Colombia
Oct 11 2007 - AMC airlines
Plane written off after overshooting runway during emergency landing in Istanbul.
Nov 30 2007 - Atlasjet airlines
All 57 people on board killed when plane crashes into a Turkish mountain
June 3 2012 - Dana Air
All 153 people on board killed along with 10 on the ground when plane on domestic flight in Nigeria loses power in both engines
14.18 A fuller passenger list has been published by official Algerian news agency APS.
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 Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo reportedly said.
However, AFP is reporting that "at least 20" passengers were Lebanese.
The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.
14.14 Fiona Govan reports from Madrid, Spain with the latest on the fate of AH5017, which was owned and staffed by the Spanish firm Swiftair:
Swiftair confirmed that the two pilots and four cabin crew are all
Spanish, and said that contact had been lost with the plane 50 minutes after
it took off from Burkina Faso this morning for Algiers.
The company said it was trying to establish the nationalities of those on board and were coordinating with the Spanish foreign ministry.
"At this moment we have emergency teams and company personnel working to establish what happened and as soon as we know more details we will release new statements," it said in a statement, according to Spanish websites.
According to Algeria media reserves of kerosene on the plane could have run out after an hour.
Spain's ministry for development and transport has called a crisis cabinet and is in touch with the company and authorities in Burkino Faso, Mali and Algeria.
Jose Manuel Margallo, Spain's foreign minister described the situation as "confusing" and is in touch with his Algerian counterpart Ramatane Lamama, as well as the Spanish prime minister.
Speaking on an office visit to Tunisia he said "the situation is very confused."
14.11 "I can confirm that it has crashed," the unnamed Algerian official who spoke to Reuters has said, declining to give details of where the plane was or what caused the accident.
13.57 An Algerian aviation official has told Reuters the plane has crashed.
No more details are currently available on the location, but Niger security sources say planes are flying over its border with Mali to search for the plane.
13.51 Swiftair, which owned and staffed the plane, has a relatively clean safety record, with five accidents since 1977, two of which caused a total of eight deaths, according to the Washington-based Flight Safety Foundation.
Air Algerie's last major accident was in 2003 when one of its planes crashed shortly after take-off from the southern city of Tamanrasset, killing 102 people. In February this year, 77 people died when an Algerian military transport plane crashed into a mountain in eastern Algeria.
13.45 French fighter jets based in the region have been dispatched to try to locate the missing plane, French army spokesman Gilles Jaron has said.
Two Mirage 2000 jets based in Africa were dispatched to try to locate the Air
Algerie plane that disappeared on Thursday.
They will search an area from its last known destination along its probable route.
13.42 David Millward explains why a Spanish-owned plane was being operated by an Algerian airline:
The aircraft was "wet leased" by Air Algerie from Swiftair [a
Spanish airline company], which supplied both aircraft and crew. The
practice of wet leasing is common in the industry. British Airways
wet-leased a number of aircraft during the 2010 cabin crew dispute to
maintain services.
13.30 There may have been as many as 80 French passengers on board AH5017, "airport sources" in Algeria have told EFE.
13.25 The Telegraph's David Millward, former transport editor, has been following events from the US:
David Soucie, a former investigator with the Federal Aviation
Administration, has told CNN: “There is no reason to think there is anything
mechanically wrong with the plane. There is some reason that it flew over
restricted airspace.”
Speaking on CNN he adds that field could have been an issue when the pilot had to make a decision what route should be taken to avoid the storm.
13.19 Mike Pflanz reports for The Telegraph from Nairobi:
A European diplomat in Ouagadougou said that there was limited information
available from the country's civil aviation authorities, but that he had
been briefed that the aircraft left Burkina Faso airspace and had continued
as planned over Malian territory.
There were reportedly many French citizens on the flight, which was likely to be routed over territory that was in the hands of al-Qaeda's affiliates in northern Mali until France intervened to push them out in 2013.
Despite this, the European diplomat said that there was no suggestion he had heard that the aircraft could have been specifically targeted by anti-French Islamist forces from the ground.
13.07 Amid conflicting reports about the missing plane's movements, here is a roundup of what we have heard so far.
- Flight AH5017 set off from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, toward Algiers, Algeria, at 0117 local time [02.17am UK time].
- It flew northward, into Mali airspace.
- Burkina Faso air traffic control handed over to the control tower in Niamey, Niger, just across the border from Mali, at 1:38am local time [02.38 UK time].
- At around this time AH5017 was asked to change route because of a storm.
- The last contact Algerian authorities had with the missing Air Algerie aircraft was at 01.55am [02.55am UK time] when it was flying over Gao, Mali.
- Niger air traffic controllers have reportedly said their said last contact with the flight was just after 4:30am local time (04.30am UK), suggesting it may have entered Niger air space, though this is yet unconfirmed
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