An Algiers-bound passenger plane disappeared from radar over West Africa less than an hour after taking off from Burkina Faso early Thursday morning, Algeria's state-run news agency is reporting. The news agency didn't provide details about how many passengers or crew are on board Air Algerie Flight 5017, but Swedish airplane-tracking site Flightradar24 puts the count as 110 passengers and six crew members. Spain's Swiftair, which owns the Air Algerie-operated MD-83 aircraft, confirmed the passenger and crew numbers.
A straight flight path from Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso capital, to Algiers would take AH5017 directly over Mali, a country with violent unrest in the north of the country. But a senior French official tells the Associated Press that the fighters in Mali almost certainly don't have weaponry that could take down a commercial jetliner at cruising altitude.
UPDATE: Air Algerie has confirmed via Twitter that the plane crashed about 40 miles from Gao, a city in eastern Mali. No additional details have been provided yet.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.