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A flight chartered by Air Algerie crashed in Mali after disappearing from radar en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers late Wednesday night.
Air-navigation services lost track of flight AH5017 about 50 minutes after takeoff from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso in West Africa.
The status of the 110 passengers (including at least 50 French nationals) and six Spanish crew members on board the Swiftair MD83 is unknown.
Algerian authorities say the plane was flying over Gao, Mali, when the crew requested a route change request because of weather.
A diplomat in the Malian capital Bamako said that the north of the country — which lies on the plane's likely flight path — told Reuters that the country was struck by a powerful sandstorm overnight.
Weather Channel digital meteorologist Nick Wiltgen tweeted this infrared image of the weather conditions when contact was lost:
CNN reports that Flight AH 5017 left Ougadougou at 00:45 local time on Thursday (8:45 p.m. Wednesday EDT) and was scheduled to arrive at Algiers' Houari Boumediene Airport at 5:40 a.m. local time (12:40 a.m. Thursday EDT). The plane had been missing for hours before its disappearance became public.
The crewmembers, two pilots and four in the cabin, are Spanish nationals while reports suggest that multiple nationalities were on the flight.
Flight AH5017 flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.
