Tangier, 25 July. - (ANA) - The Air Algerie plane that crashed yesterday in Amguillis, 110 mks north-east of Kidal in northern Mali, according to the Moroccan TV channel Medi-1 quoting a source in Rabat.
The TV channel said that an eye witness on the spot confirmed the crash of the plane in that region of Mali.
The plane was travelling from Burkina faso capital Ouagadougou and heading towards Algiers disppeared from the radar a few minutes after it took off with 119 passengers on board including 6 crew members.
across the Sahara when Algerian aviation authorities lost contact with the aircraft, about 50 minutes after take-off, the APS state news agency reported on Thursday.

The list of passengers includes 50 passengers -almost half - were French, 4 were from Burkina Faso, 8 Lebanese, 6 Algerians, 5 Canadians, 4 German, 2 from Luxembourg and 1 from Mali.

There was also 1 Nigerian, one from Cameroon, 1 Belgian, 1 Ukrainian, 1 Romanian and 1 Swiss passenger, Air Algerie said.

The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.
"I can confirm that it has crashed," an Algerian official told Reuters, declining to be identified or give any details about what had happened to the aircraft on its way north.

The plane had been missing for hours before the news was made public. It wasn't immediately clear why airline or government officials didn't make it public earlier.

There have been mixed reports about the location of the plane, with the head of Mali's National Civil Aviation Agency saying that a search was currently under way for the missing flight.

The Air Algerie flight disappeared over northern Mali, France's transport minister said. The passenger airliner was last seen at 0155 GMT, when it was flying over Gao, Mali, the airline added. It should have landed at 0510.

Gao is about 300 miles from Niamey, Niger, where it has been reported that the plane came down.

The city is not on the flight route for the plane but officials said it had been diverted due to poor visibility.

The plane was asked to change route at 01.38 (02.38 UK time) because of a powerful sandstorm, the Burkina Faso transport minister 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," an Air Algerie source said.

"Two Mirage 2000 jets based in Africa were dispatched to try to locate the Air Algerie plane that disappeared on Thursday," French army spokesman Gilles Jaron said.

The plane was chartered from Spanish airline Swiftair who said in a statement that the aircraft was an MD83 and first announced that they were unable to establish contact with the plane.

Flight AH5017 flew the Ouagadougou-Algiers route four times a week, AFP news agency reported.
Ougadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north.

The country is currently considered a "high risk" flight zone by US airlines, according to the Wall Street Journal graphic.
The downing of the Air Algerie plane comes a week to the day after the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in which 298 people died. (ANA)

AB/ANA/ 25 July 2014 - - -