This photo taken on Friday, May 16, 2014 shows an MD-83 aircraft in the livery of Swiftair landing at Zaventem Airport Brussels. An Air Algerie flight carrying over 100 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria’s capital disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali after heavy rains were reported, according to the plane’s owner and government officials in France and Burkina Faso. Air navigation services lost track of the MD-83 about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, at 0155 GMT (9:55 p.m. EDT Wednesday), the official Algerian news agency APS said. Air Algerie Flight 5017 was being operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, the company said in a statement. The Spanish pilots’ union said the plane belonged to Swiftair and it was operated by a Spanish crew. (AP Photo/Kevin Cleynhens)
MONTREAL – A Canadian family of four were among the victims of Thursday’s Air Algerie plane crash in Mali near the Burkina Faso border that killed 116 people, local media said.
The mother, father and two children lived in a suburb of Montreal and were returning home with a friend – a resident of nearby Sherbrooke, Quebec – from another couple’s 50th wedding anniversary celebrations in Burkina Faso, said French-language broadcaster LCN.
An Air Algerie official in Montreal was not able to confirm the reports.
Flight AH5017, which originated in Ouagadougou and was bound for Algiers went missing amid reports of heavy storms, company sources and officials said.