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Air Algerie Crash: French Officials Say Bad Weather Likely Cause

Poor weather was the most likely cause of the crash of an Air Algerie flight over the West African state of Mali with 116 people … Continue reading Air Algerie Crash: French Officials Say Bad Weather Likely Cause


airline 3Poor weather was the most likely cause of the crash of an Air Algerie flight over the West African state of Mali with 116 people on board, French officials said on Friday.

Investigators at the scene of the crash had concluded the airliner broke apart when it hit the ground, the officials said, suggesting the plane was unlikely to have been the victim of an attack.

“The aircraft was destroyed at the moment it crashed,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio of the wreckage of the plane carrying 51 French nationals which crashed in Mali near the border with Burkina Faso on Thursday.

“We think the aircraft crashed for reasons linked to the weather conditions. No theory can be excluded at this point … but that is indeed the most likely theory,” he added.

Separately, Transport Minister, Frederic Cuvillier, said the strong smell of aircraft fuel at the crash site and the fact that the debris was scattered over a relatively small area also suggested the cause of the crash was linked to weather, a technical problem or a combination of such factors.

“We exclude – and have done so from the start – any ground strike,” Cuvillier told France 2 television.

He added that a column of 100 soldiers from the French force stationed in the region were on their way to secure the crash site near the northern town of Gossi. France deployed troops to Mail last year to halt an al Qaeda-backed insurgency.

Algeria’s national airline lost contact with the plane flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara about  50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou.

The Flight AH 5017 has 110 passengers and 6 crew on board, Spanish airline, Swiftair, who owns the plane, said.

An unnamed Air Algerie company source, told AFP news agency on Thursday that “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. Contact was lost after the change of course”.

Burkina Faso authorities said the passenger list included 51 French, 27 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two from Luxembourg, one Cameroonian, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukranian, one Swiss, one Nigerian and one Malian. Crash site investigators saw no survivors.