TEMPO.CO, Burkina Faso - Air Algerie that was reported to have lost contact yesterday has been confirmed to have crashed between the town of Gossi and the Burkina Faso border. The wreckage was seen near the village of Boulikessi, 50 km from the border.
"This team has confirmed that it has seen the remains of the plane, totally burned out and scattered on the ground," General Gilber Diendere, a member of the crisis unit in Burkina Faso, said as quoted by Reuters this morning. "Sadly, the team saw no one on site. It saw no survivors."
Flight AH5017 lost contact during its travel from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, to Algeria 50 minutes after take-off. The pilot had previously requested to change route due to bad weather.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 plane carried 51 French nationals, 27 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two from Luxembourg, one Cameroonian, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Swiss, one Nigeran and one Malian.
ANINGTIAS JATMIKA | REUTERS