Canadians among dead in Sahara crash
Algerian jetliner falls from sky in violent rainstorm
An Air Algérie jetliner carrying 116 people — including five from Quebec and three family members of a man who lives in Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa — crashed Thursday in a rainstorm over Mali, and its wreckage was found near the border of neighbouring Burkina Faso. It was the third major international aviation disaster in a week.
Isabelle Prévost, of Sherbrooke, Que., a 35-year-old mother of three, died in the crash, according to her father. Prévost had accompanied friends — a Burkino-Canadian couple from Longueuil, near Montreal, and their two children — to a wedding anniversary in Burkina Faso. Neither Prévost’s husband nor her three children accompanied her on the trip, according to the victim’s father.
Reports indicate that Gatineau resident Mamadou Zoungrana, who is a Burkina Faso native, as saying his wife and two sons, 6 and 13, were abroad the flight. They are reportedly not Canadian citizens.
Representatives from Montreal’s Air Algérie office would not confirm any details nor divulge the identities of any of the victims.
Flight 5017 disappeared from radar screens about 1:30 a.m., less than an hour after takeoff, en route from Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou to Algiers, the Algerian capital. The plane, an old twin-engined MD-83 jet built by McDonnell Douglas, was owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria’s flagship carrier.
French fighter jets, UN peacekeepers and others hunted for signs of wreckage of the MD-83 plane in the remote region, where scattered separatist violence may hamper an eventual investigation into what happened.
The wreckage was found about 50 kilometres from the border of Burkina Faso near the village of Boulikessi in Mali, a Burkina Faso presidential aide said.
“We sent men with the agreement of the Mali government to the site and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area,” said Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.
“They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered,” he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement saying he was saddened at news of the crash. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the passengers and crew who lost their lives in this tragedy,” he said. The statement confirmed Canadians were among the victims.
Tweets from the account of Lynne Yelich, Canada’s minister of state for foreign affairs, said consular officials are ready to provide assistance.
Families from France to Canada and beyond had been waiting anxiously for signs of Flight 5017 and their loved ones aboard.
Nearly half of the passengers were French, many en route home from Africa.
“Everything allows us to believe this plane crashed in Mali,” French President François Hollande said Thursday night after an emergency meeting in Paris.
He said the crew changed its flight path because of “particularly difficult weather conditions.”
Before the plane vanished, the pilots sent a final message to ask air control in Niger to change its route because of heavy rain, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said.
French forces, who have been in Mali since January 2013 to rout al-Qaida-linked extremists, searched for the plane, alongside the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA.