A
commercial jetliner carrying 116 people went missing and presumably
crashed in Western Africa on Thursday after adjusting its route due to a
storm in western Africa — the third major aviation disaster in a week.
A Burkina Faso airport
official told NBC News that wreckage from Air Algerie Flight AH5017 had
been found in neighboring Mali, but French President Francois Hollande
disputed that.
"No trace of plane has
been found yet. All efforts will be used to find this plane. I have
mobilized all our military in this area," Hollande told reporters.
The plane — carrying 50
French nationals and passengers from a dozen other countries — vanished
about 50 minutes after it left Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso
on its way to Algiers, Algeria.
It took off at 1:17 a.m.
local time (9:17 p.m. ET on Wednesday). Burkina Faso's Transport
Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo told reporters its pilots had asked to
change route about 21 minutes after takeoff after reporting heavy rains.
Spain-based Swiftair
confirmed it operated the McDonnell Douglas MD-83. Swiftair said 110
passengers and six crew were aboard the jet. It had been due to land in
the Algerian capital at 5:10 a.m. local time (12:10 a.m. ET), but the
flight was missing for hours before the news was made public.
Citing the transport
minister, The Associated Press reported the flight was carrying 51
French nationals, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six
Algerians, five Canadians, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one
Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and
one Malian.
According to the
airport's Facebook page, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro's niece,
Mariela, was among the passengers, but NBC News has confirmed she was
not on the flight and is in her native Havana.
www.aeroport-ouagadougou.com
Earlier, an Algerian
official told Reuters that the last contact with the jet was over Gao,
Mali. An influx of arms and fighters from the 2011 Libyan civil and an
attempted coup the following year has left Mali in turmoil. Gao has
witnessed recent attacks involving both Tuareg separatist rebels and al
Qaeda-linked militants.
The incident comes in the wake of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being shot down by a surface-to-air missle over eastern Ukraine last Thursday and the crash Wednesday of a TransAsia turboprop on a small Taiwanese island. Nearly 350 were killed in the two disasters.
On Wednesday, U.K. pilots also warned passengers of the "illusion of safety"
after some airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration halted
flights to an Israeli airport because of the risk of rockets fired by
militants.
The FAA classifies Mali as a potentially hostile region.
“Civil aircraft
operating into, out of, within or over Mali are at risk of encountering
insurgent small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket and mortar
fire, and anti-aircraft fire, to include shoulder-fired man-portable air
defense systems (MANPADS),” the FAA said in a notice. Any U.S. aircraft
flying below 24,000 feet “must obtain current threat information” and
comply with all FAA regulations.
However, one senior
French official told The Associated Press that it seemed unlikely that
fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry needed to shoot down a plane.
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."
Gleave said that a
variety of problems might be behind the plane's disappearance —
potentially ranging from maintenance issues to human error. "“It could
be something as mundane as multiple vulture strikes," he added.
Founded in 1986,
Spain’s Swiftair flies in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. According
to its website, it has 30 planes and employs around 400 people. On Jan.
24, 2012, one of its planes – a MD-83 – was damaged landing at
Afghanistan’s Kandahar Airport, according to air safety website Aviation Safety Network.
There were no fatalities. And on July 28, 1998, one of its cargo planes
crashed on approach to Barcelona, Spain, killing two onboard, the site added.
Crashes involving Malaysia Airlines alone have sent this year’s death toll in aviation disasters beyond the annual global average, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association.
The downing of MH17 and March 8 disappearance of MH370 account for 537
deaths – higher than the five-year worldwide average total of 517.
A TransAsia flight also crash-landed on a Taiwanese island Wednesday, killing 48 people.
NBC News'
Emmanuelle Saliba, Ian Wood, Alastair Jamieson and Jason Cumming, The
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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