Violence may hamper investigation into Mali plane crash
There are fears today that scattered separatist violence may hamper an eventual investigation into what is the third major international aviation disaster in a week.
A jetliner carrying 116 people crashed in a rainstorm over Mali, and its wreckage was found near the border with neighbouring Burkina Faso.
The Air Algerie plane, owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria's flagship carrier, disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off from Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou for Algiers.
French fighter jets, UN peacekeepers and others hunted for the wreckage of the MD-83 in the remote region.
It was found about 30 miles from the border with Burkina Faso near the village of Boulikessi in Mali, a Burkina Faso presidential aide said.
"We sent men, with the agreement of the Mali government, to the site, and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area," said General Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.
"They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," he said.
He told The Associated Press that rescuers went to the area after they had heard from a resident that he saw the plane go down 50 miles from the Malian town of Gossi.
Burkina Faso's government spokesman said the country will observe 48 hours of mourning.
Malian state television also said the debris of Flight 5017 was found in the village of Boulikessi and was found by a helicopter from Burkina Faso. Algeria's transport minister also said the wreckage had apparently been found.
Families from France to Canada and beyond had been waiting anxiously for word about the jetliner and the fate of their loved ones aboard. Nearly half of the passengers were French, many en route home from Africa.
"Everything allows us to believe this plane crashed in Mali," French President Francois Hollande said after an emergency meeting in Paris.
He said the crew changed its flight path because of "particularly difficult weather conditions".
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told reporters: "If this catastrophe is confirmed, it would be a major tragedy that hits our entire nation, and many others."
The pilots had sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain, said Burkina Faso transport minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo.
French forces, who have been in Mali since January last year to fight al Qaida-linked extremists who had controlled the north, searched for the plane, alongside the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali.
The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al Qaida-linked Islamic extremists after a military coup in 2012.
The French-led intervention scattered the extremists, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government.
Meanwhile, the threat from Islamic militants has not disappeared, and France is giving its troops a new and larger anti-terrorist mission across the region.
A senior French official said it seems unlikely that fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry that could shoot down a jetliner at cruising altitude.
While al Qaida's North Africa branch is believed to have an SA-7 surface-to-air missile, most airliners would normally fly out of range of these shoulder-fired weapons. They can hit targets flying up to roughly 12,000-15,000 feet.
The crash of the Air Algerie plane is the latest in a series of aviation disasters.
Fliers around the globe have been on edge ever since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March on its way to Beijing. Searchers have yet to find a single piece of wreckage from the jet with 239 people on board.
Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine, and the US has blamed it on separatists firing a surface-to-air missile.
Earlier this week, US and European airlines started cancelling flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed near the city's airport.
Finally, on Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.
Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, including two pilots and four flight attendants.
The passengers included 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxembourg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Mr Ouedraogo said.
The six crew members were Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.
