MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) – The Air Algerie’s plane with at least 110 passengers and six crew members on board presumably crashed near Niger’s capital Niamey, Algeria’s privately owned An-Nahar TV reported Thursday.
All on board are feared dead, according to An-Nahar.
The plane was performing a shared flight with Spanish air carrier Swiftair from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso to Algiers.
Earlier reports suggested that it went off radar screens while in the airspace of Mali.
Contact with the aircraft was lost 50 minutes after it departed from Ouagadougou.
Earlier today an unnamed Air Algerie representative told Agence France Presse that the contact with plane was lost after a change of course.
“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," Air Algerie representative told AFP.
Air Algerie, founded 1947, is a state-owned airline that flies to 69 destinations in 28 countries. The company has a fleet of 43 aircrafts, including Boeing 737-800, ATR 72-500 and Airbus A330-200.
