Air Algerie Flight Operated by Spain's Swiftair Disappears
A
commercial jetliner carrying 116 people disappeared over west Africa
after adjusting its route due to a storm early Thursday, an official
said.
Air Algerie Flight
AH5017 vanished about 50 minutes after it left Ouagadougou, the capital
of Burkina Faso. The jet took off at 1:17 a.m. local time (9:17 p.m. ET
on Wednesday) bound for the Algerian capital Algiers. Burkina Faso's
Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo told reporters its pilots had
asked to change route at 1:38 a.m. local time (9.38 p.m. ET) after
reporting heavy rains.
In a statement,
Spain-based Swiftair confirmed it operated the missing McDonnell
Douglas MD-83. Swiftair said 110 passengers and six crew were aboard the
jet. It had been due to land in the Algerian capital at 5:10 a.m. local
time (12:10 a.m. ET), but the flight was missing for hours before the
news was made public.
Reuters quoted an
unidentified Algerian aviation official as saying the jet had crashed.
The report could not be independently verified by NBC News. A statement
posted in Ouagadougou airport's website said a suspected crash zone had
been identified in a desert region of neighboring Mali.
www.aeroport-ouagadougou.com
Citing the transport
minister, The Associated Press reported the flight was carrying 51
French nationals, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six
Algerians, five Canadians, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one
Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and
one Malian.
Earlier, an Algerian
official told Reuters that the last contact with the jet was over Gao,
Mali. An influx of arms and fighters from the 2011 Libyan civil and an
attempted coup the following year has left Mali in Turmoil. Gao has
witnessed recent attacks involving both Tuareg separatist rebels and al
Qaeda-linked militants.
Issa Saly Maiga, the
head of Mali's National Civil Aviation Agency, said that a search was
under way for the missing flight. "We do not know if the plane is Malian
territory," he added. "Aviation authorities are mobilized in all the
countries concerned - Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria and even
Spain."
The incident comes in the wake of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 being shot down by a surface-to-air missle over eastern Ukraine last Thursday.
On Wednesday, U.K. pilots also warned passengers of the "illusion of safety" after some airlines halted flights to an Israeli airport because of the risk of rockets fired by militants.
The Federal Aviation Administration classes Mali as a potentially hostile region.
“Civil aircraft
operating into, out of, within or over Mali are at risk of encountering
insurgent small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket and mortar
fire, and anti-aircraft fire, to include shoulder-fired man-portable air
defense systems (MANPADS),” the FAA said in a notice. Any U.S. aircraft
flying below 24,000 feet “must obtain current threat information” and
comply with all FAA regulations.
However, one senior
French official told The Associated Press that it seemed unlikely that
fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry needed to shoot down a plane.
David Gleave, an
aviation expert at Britain’s Loughborough University, described the
MD-83 as a "pretty solid airplane in general." He added: "It flies
fairly simply, pilots understand how it flies so it is a solid, reliable
workhorse … it is unlikely to be the flight crew didn't understand the
aircraft."
Gleave said that a
variety of problems might be behind the plane's disappearance -
potentially ranging from maintenance issues to human error. "“It could
be something as mundane as multiple vulture strikes," he added.
Founded in 1986,
Spain’s Swiftair flies in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. According
to its website, it has 30 planes and employs around 400 people. On Jan.
24, 2012, one of its planes – a MD-83 – was damaged landing at
Afghanistan’s Kandahar Airport, according to air safety website Aviation Safety Network.
There were no fatalities. And on July 28, 1998, one of its cargo planes
crashed on approach to Barcelona, Spain, killing two onboard, the site added.
Crashes involving Malaysia Airlines alone have sent this year’s death toll in aviation disasters beyond the annual global average, according to figures from the International Air Transport Association.
The downing of MH17 and March 8 disappearance of MH370 account for 537
deaths – higher than the five-year worldwide average total of 517.
A TransAsia flight also crash-landed on a Taiwanese island Wednesday, killing 48 people.
NBC News' Ian Wood, Alastair Jamieson and Jason Cumming, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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