Swiftair, a the private Spanish company, announced the disappearance of one of the MD-83 aircraft it owns, which was being operated for Air Algerie earlier Thursday. "Our emergency teams are working out to discover what happened and as we begin to discover more details we will publish further communiques," confirmed Swiftair.

The aircraft took off from Burkina Faso with 116 people on board en-route to Algeria. However contact with the aircraft was lost over the north-east of Mali 40 minutes later and the plane never reached its destination.

Two French fighters which have been operating in the region have been dispatched to look for wreckage along the planned route of the missing aircraft.

The MD83 aircraft which disappeared in the early hours of Thursday morning has crashed, according to an Algerian official.

The MD-83 which has disappeared has been identified as the aircraft which used to be known as "La Saeta" and which used to carry the Real Madrid team to away games between 2007-2009. It was carrying 110 passengers, half of whom were French tourists, and a crew of six, all of whom were Spanish.

Authorities in Mali have reported that contact with the plane was lost close to the town of Gao, which has been the scene of fierce fighting by Malian and French troops against the rebels.

Spanish TV network RTVE says the French military have ruled out that the plane was deliberately shot down, as appears to have been the case with flight MH17 over the eastern Ukraine a week ago.

"The aircraft was not far from the border with Algeria when the crew was asked to change course in order to avoid a collision with another aircraft. Afterwards the signal was lost," confirmed Air Algerie.

Meanwhile local weather reports show the area the plane was flying through was affected by "violent storms with powerful gusts of wind and an important amount of electrical activity."

Swiftair was created in 1986 and currently has a staff of 400 and a fleet of 30 aircraft. Endi

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