Air Algerie flight AH5017 crashes: Official

By Yahoo News

Air Algerie Flight 5017 path. (Map from Google Maps via Yahoo News)

Air Algerie flight AH5017, en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers and carrying 116 people, has crashed, an Algerian aviation official told Reuters.

"I can confirm that it has crashed," the official said, declining to give details of where the plane was or what caused the accident.

Here is what we know so far:

• Swiftair, the Spanish airline operated by Air Algerie, said it lost contact with MD83 aircraft — with 110 passengers and six crew members — about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of the west African nation. The four-hour flight was scheduled to arrive in Algiers at 5:40 a.m. local time.

Agence France-Press reports 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."
Weather officials said northern Mali was hit with a powerful sandstorm overnight.

There are reports that the plane crashed in Niger.