Burkina Faso announces finding missing Air Algerie plane

On July 24, General Gilbert Diendiere of the Burkina Faso Army said that the wreckage of the missing Air Algerie plane AH-5017 was found in Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso.

“We have found the Algerian plane, the wreckage of which was located 50 km north of the Burkina Faso border,” in Mali’s Gossi region, the head of the crisis unit in Ouagadougou said.

The missing Air Algerie AH-5017 was reported found near the border with Burkina Faso. (Photo: jomtopi.blogspot.com)

“A witness told us that he saw the plane crash at 01:50 GMT and local time on July 24. We are in contact with the witness and will survey the location to verify the information. We believe that this information is correct because we have compared it with the radar flight path until the plane disappeared,” Diendiere added.

Meanwhile, the Algerian National News Agency (APS) on July 24 quoted the country's Transport Minister Amar Ghoul as saying that the plane's wreckage "may have been seen in Mali." However, he said that this information "needs to be confirmed." Meanwhile, Mali's President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita said that people "saw wreckage" of the plane "in Northern Mali."

The cause of the crash is still unclear. French officials have acknowledged that the plane was in good condition during a check-up last week in France, but have not ruled out the possibility of a technical problem, but have not considered it the leading hypothesis.

The African and Madagascar Aviation Safety Agency (ASECNA) said it is gathering technical elements from flight plans, recordings of conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers, radar screens, etc. to screen information before drawing conclusions.

However, the agency did not rule out the possibility that the AH-5017 plane crashed due to bad weather. Some French experts did not rule out the possibility that the plane was shot down by terrorists or bombed while in flight because radio communication was cut off too quickly./.

According to VNA