By Stacy Meichtry and Drew Hinshaw
An Air Algérie jetliner with 118 people onboard lost contact
with ground controllers on Thursday and likely crashed in northern
Mali, the airline and French officials said, marking the latest in
a string of airline incidents around the world that have mobilized
aviation regulators and safety officials.
For the second time in a week, executives and air-safety
regulators struggled to ascertain what happened. The jetliner, a
Boeing Co. MD-83, took off from Burkina Faso, en route to the
Algerian capital Algiers. If a crash is confirmed, authorities
would then also have to grapple with the daunting task of
retrieving wreckage and human remains from a desolate and tense
conflict zone.
The fate of Air Algérie Flight 5017--which lost contact at 1:55
a.m. local time, 50 minutes after departing from Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso--reverberated far beyond the Sahara, from where it was
last heard. Fifty-one passengers on board were French nationals,
many of them due to catch connecting flights in Algiers to return
home to France.
French President François Hollande summoned senior members of
his cabinet for a crisis meeting Thursday, deploying fighter jets
and other military forces in the region to search for wreckage over
northern Mali--a Texas-size area where authorities believe the
plane went down.
By nightfall, France was plunged into a state of national
mourning. Friends and family members of the missing passengers
gathered at airports across France, awaiting updates, as Mr.
Hollande told the country that "no trace" of the plane had turned
up.
"The search will last as long as necessary," he said. "This is a
moment of gravity and of pain."
The plane was also carrying 24 passengers from Burkina Faso,
eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians and four Germans. The
passenger list also included people from Luxembourg, Mali, Belgium,
Niger, Cameroon, Egypt, Ukraine, Romania and Switzerland. The
nationality of three passengers was still being verified.
All six crew members aboard the plane are from Spain. The plane
was operated by Swiftair SA, a Spanish charter company.
The plane's exact flight path isn't clear. But authorities lost
contact while it was over northern Mali--the site of a simmering
Islamist insurgency. Air Algérie SpA said it had ordered the plane
to change course because of bad weather. Before losing contact, the
plane had changed its flight path because of "particularly
difficult weather conditions," Mr. Hollande said.
Still, the overflight of Mali is likely to fuel questions by
airline executives and regulators over whether commercial jetliners
should fly over conflict zones. Last week's downing of Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 over war-torn eastern Ukraine had ratcheted up
that debate.
It also follows a temporary flight ban imposed by the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration on American carriers using Tel
Aviv's airport, after a Hamas-fired rocket landed nearby this week.
The ban was lifted late Wednesday.
French officials on Thursday said there were no signs the Air
Algérie flight was shot down, but they aren't ruling out the
possibility. The FAA has warned airlines to be extra vigilant when
flying over Mali and gone as far as to ban U.S. carriers from
flying over the African country at lower altitudes, citing
"insurgent activity, " including the threat of antiaircraft
missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and rockets.
Commercial jetliners flying in Africa have traditionally had the
worst accident record. In the past five years, African carriers
accounted for 23% of fatal aircraft accidents in the years spanning
2009 to 2013, even though the region sees far less flying than
others. The region last year suffered 7.45 crashes per one million
flights. That is down significantly from its five-year average of
13.53 crashes per million flights, though still far behind the
global average of 2.51 crashes over the same five-year period, the
International Air Transport Association said this year.
If the jet went down in northern Mali, accessing the site would
be a challenge. Since its medieval heyday as a thoroughfare for
caravans traveling on camelback, northern Mali has been rendered
barren by centuries of desertification that have left it a remote
stretch, strewed with rocks and dunes.
That landscape is likely to hinder the search effort. Towns and
military outposts are separated by hundreds of miles and the
occasional nomadic tent camp. Massive sandstorms swirl up quickly,
including one on Thursday.
The site also sits in the midst of a civil war. For days, Malian
media have reported small desert battles among a group of jihadists
looking to impose Islamic law, a second militia that wants autonomy
for the local Tuareg people, a third group that seeks to defend the
interests of the resident Arab population, as well as Mali's weak
military.
Armed convoys drive through frequently, trafficking weapons,
cigarettes, and, some Western officials suspect, cocaine. In 2012,
the area was conquered by a group of al Qaeda allies.
Last year, France dispatched thousands of troops to the area to
chase terrorists, even scanning the desert with hand-held metal
detectors to find buried weapons. Still, Malian and French
officials acknowledge the area remains infiltrated by al
Qaeda-inspired jihadists; kidnapping of foreigners poses a distinct
threat.
Inti Landauro, Benoît Faucon, Robert Wall and Christopher Bjork
contributed to this article.
Corrections & Amplifications
Earlier we incorrectly said that Air Algérie said Flight 5017
crashed. The airline said it "likely" crashed.
Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com and Drew
Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com
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