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Air Algerie Flight AH5017 reportedly crashes with 110 passengers, 6 crew

So far details are scarce, but an Algerian aviation official has confirmed that the plane has crashed. So far there is no word on who, if anyone, survived.

The flight had five Canadians on board, and French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said there were “likely many” French passengers, which was later confirmed to be 50. Also on board were 24 Burkina Faso nationals, and citizens of Switzerland, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, Lebanon and Mali. The six crew members are Spanish.

Reuters reports that two French fighter jets in the region are on the lookout for the fallen plane along its probable route.

Details remain sketchy on when exactly the flight lost radio contact. While CBC is reporting lost contact 50 minutes after contact, others say an hour. At 1:38 a.m. local time, aviation authorities in Burkina Faso handed the flight over to the control tower in Niamey. The tower then asked the flight to change route to avoid a storm in the Sahara.

Spanish private airline company Swiftair, which operates the plane, said that contact was lost in Mali amid heavy rain.

The scheduled route of flight AH5017 flies over Mali, which saw a military coup in 2012. As BBC News notes: “Unrest involving both Ethnic Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked militants is continuing in the north of the country. However, a French official quoted by AP said it was unlikely that either party had access to weaponry that could shoot down a plane.”

“We do not know if the plane is Malian territory,” Issa Saly Maiga, head of Mali’s National Civil Aviation Agency, told Reuters. “Aviation authorities are mobilized in all the countries concerned — Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria and even Spain.”

This latest crash comes amid the MH17 tragedy and Wednesday’s crash of a Taiwanese plane, which killed 48 people.

This is a developing story. We will post more information as it becomes available.

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