Another Missing Jet: Air Algeria Disappears With 116 on Board
The global aviation industry has yet to recover from the twin blows caused by the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 on March 8 and the bombing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, another major air disaster looms as reports said an Air Algeria plane with 116 people on board is also missing.
The report is just one week after the crash of MH 17 which killed all 298 passengers and crew. Reuters reported that Algerian authorities lost contact with flight AH 5017 an hour after it left Burkina Faso. The MD-83 jet is operated by Air Algerie and chartered from Swiftair, and had 110 passengers and six crew, en route to Algiers from Ouahadougou.
It left Burkina Faso 0117 local time and was expected to land in Algeria at 0510 local time. But if failed to arrive at its destination.
BBC reports that the plane was not far from Algeria when its crew was asked to detour due to poor visibility, and in the process, to avert the possibility of a collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route. The contact was lost after the aircraft changed course.
The plane flies four times weekly the Ouagadougou-Algiers route. Among its passengers are Algerians.
It is not the first plane mishap involving an Algerian plane. In February, an Algerian military plane crashed and killed all 77 people on board after it crashed into a mountainous province while on the way to Constantine during bad weather conditions.
YouTube/BBC