Air Algerie said it lost contact with one of its passenger aircraft nearly an hour after take-off from Burkina Faso on Thursday bound for Algiers. A company source told AFP that the missing aircraft was a DC-9 and that some 110 passengers of various nationalities and six crew members are listed as being on board the flight.
The source said contact with the flight was lost while it was still in Malian airspace approaching the border with Algeria. "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," the source said. "Contact was lost after the change of course."
The airline announced that the plane had gone missing in a brief statement carried by national news agency APS. "Air navigation services have lost contact with an Air Algerie plane on Thursday flying from Ouagadougou to Algiers, 50 minutes after take-off," the statement said. It added that the company initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.
