Algeria loses contact with Air Algerie flight AH 5017
Algeria has lost contact with Air Algerie aircraft according to reports from state APS news agency.
Flight AH 5017 was en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers at the time, and contact was lost about 50 minutes into the flight.
No passenger details were given by APS, but some news outlets are reporting that 116 people on board when it disappeared from the radar.
UPDATE: Air Algerie flight AH5017 crashes in Mali with 116 passengers on board
CNN Wire, an offshoot of the US television news network CNN, tweeted a map of the rough location of the plane's last radar sighting.
https://twitter.com/CNNWire/status/492263127439138816
Flight Radar 24, a website that tracks planes, said that Spanish airline Swiftair had leased the missing plane to Air Algerie.
Swiftair MD83 with registration EC-LTV has been leased to Air Algerie for the last days. http://t.co/pqCiGNVbWh pic.twitter.com/8FVqOENAmA
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) July 24, 2014
While Spanish newspaper El Pais is reporting the six crew members were Spanish.
En el avión español de Swiftair con el que se ha perdido contacto viajan 110 pasajeros y 6 tripulantes españoles http://t.co/uKUobUAsee
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) July 24, 2014
The news comes on the back of the tragic events in Ukraine last week, where passenger aircraft MH17 crashed killing all 298 passengers and crew, after apparently being struck by a missile. The incident has caused huge geopolitical tensions in the last week.