One of the aircrafts belonging to Algeria national airline, Air Algerie, has been declared missing. The plane, carrying 110 passengers and six crew members was flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara.
The airline authorities in Algeria said that they lost contact with the plane about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou.
The passenger airliner was last seen at 0155 GMT and should have landed at 0510.
Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board, Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane, said.
Air Algerie officials were quoted as saying: “in keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan.”
In a statement (in Spanish), Swiftair said that the aircraft was an MD83 and that they were unable to establish contact with the plane.
An unnamed Air Algerie company source said: “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. Contact was lost after the change of course.”
Flight AH 5017 flies the Ouagadougou-Algiers route four times a week. [myad]
