Confirmed: Missing Air Algerie flight AH5017 Carrying 110 People Has Crashed

An Air Algerie flight that went missing en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers with 110 people on board has crashed, an Algerian aviation official said today.

Air navigation services lost track of the Swiftair MD-83 around 50 minutes into the flight after the crew reportedly asked to change course due to a storm.

The plane, which is operated by Air Algerie, was last picked up on radar at 1.55am GMT and should have landed in the Algerian capital around three hours later.

‘I can confirm that it has crashed,’ the official said, declining to give details of where the plane was or what caused the accident.

Around 50 French citizens were among the 110 passengers on board, the airline’s representative in Burkina Faso told a news conference in Ouagadougou, where the plane took off.

There were also Spanish nationals on board, including all six of the crew.

The flight path of AH5017 from Ouagadougou, the capital of the west African nation of Burkina Faso, to Algiers was not immediately clear.

Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedragor said the flight had been asked to change route because of a storm around 30 minutes after taking off.

A source from Air Algerie told the AFP news agency said contact was lost while it was still in Malian air space approaching the border with Algeria.

The 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.’