News: Air Algerie with 116 on board loses contact with plane over Africa today

Air Algerie said it lost contact with one of its aircraft nearly an hour after takeoff from Burkina Faso on Thursday bound for Algiers.
"Air navigation services have lost contact with an Air Algerie plane Thursday flying from Ouagadougou to Algiers, 50 minutes after takeoff," the airline said, cited by national news agency APS.
Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board.
The plane was en route from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers.
But air traffic control lost contact with the aircraft around 50 minutes after take-off, the APS state news agency reported.
An unnamed Air Algerie company source, speaking to AFP news agency, said: ‘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.’
It flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week

 

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