Today, the foreign minister of France has said that the search for the missing Air Algerie airplane bearing 110 passengers and six crew members enroute from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to Algiers would be focusing on the Mali Desert. This would be among the high-profile airplane disappearances in recent years. It also recalled the plight of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which is still deemed missing.
Among the passengers missing in the Air Algerie flight are 51 French nationals, 24 Burkina Faso nationals, six Lebanese, five Canadians, four Algerians, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian. The airplane crew are all Spanish nationals, ABC noted.
ABC News reported that the plane's disappearance was noted when Spanish company Swiftair, who operated the plane, had issued a statement saying that the airplane had not reached to its intended destination. This was corroborated by air navigation services, who have lost track of the airplane in radar 50 minutes after the plane had taken off from the airport. Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo then said that the missing plane's last message was sent at around 0130 GMT (9:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday), which was a request to Niger air control for change in route due to heavy rains encountered in its route.
French forces that are stationed in Mali to aid in combating tribal separatists and al Qaeda has already dispatched two airplanes in search of the missing airliner.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said, "Despite an intensive search, no traces of the aircraft have been found yet. It has probably crashed. The search is at this stage focused on a vast area in the Gao region of Mali. The French Ministry of Defense has deployed resources in the region to find the plane. Algeria and UN forces have done the same. Two French Mirage 2000 based in Niamey have been carrying out reconnaissance flights since this morning."
