Air Algerie flight AH5017 has crashed with 110 on board near Niger

What is the world coming to.
http://www.9news.com.au/World/2014/07/24/19/42/Air-Algerie-l…
Algerian officials have confirmed Air Algerie flight AH5017 has crashed, with at least 110 passengers on board.

Earlier, the airline reported it had lost contact with one of its passenger aircraft nearly an hour after takeoff from Burkina Faso bound for Algiers.

Aviation sources told AFP the aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased from Spanish company Swiftair carrying passengers of different nationalities.

Its six-member crew were all Spanish, said Spain's airline pilots' union Sepla.

France has sent two Mirage 2000 jets to look for the plane.

Many French nationals were thought to be on board the plane, France's Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said in Paris.

He said after a government meeting that top civil aviation officials were holding an emergency meeting and a crisis cell had been set up.

"The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Algerian border. Several nationalities are among the victims," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was cited as saying by Algerian radio.

An Air Algerie source earlier said contact was lost while the airliner was still in Malian airspace and approaching the border with Algeria.

Despite international military intervention still under way, the situation remains unstable in northern Mali, which was seized by jihadist groups for several months in 2012.

Comments

  • this too:

    A PLANE has crashed in a failed emergency landing, killing 51 people in Taiwan
    http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/alert-taiwan-plan…

  • 2 in one day, that's not good for the aviation industry

  • +1

    The extra level of 'adventure' that comes as a bonus for people who fly on any number of African (and South American) airlines, means that when they go down they usually get the slightest level of world news coverage. Sad, but true.

    The misadventures of a variety Asian airlines have also traditionally escaped more than passing coverage, especially if they happened to have been internal flights.

    Only because of other events will new crashes get some attention, but maybe some more again, I suppose, if something other than age-of-aircraft / maintenance / weather issues are involved.

  • +5

    Any Australian s on board? No? Pretty much zero news coverage then.

  • -3

    Check the financial position of airline before buying the ticket.

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