(UPDATE: July 25th) – According to numerous reports, French President Francois Hollande said in a statement Friday that there were no survivors from the crash.
"There are unfortunately no survivors. I share the pain of the families who are living a horrible ordeal," he said.
He also mentioned that one of two blackboxes that were attached to the aircraft were found in the debris, and is currently being transported to a city called Mao, located in northern Mali.
Although a terrorist attack is still a possibility for the crash, most officials are pointing to bad weather as the cause of the crash. According to U.S. News, if an explosion or an attack had been the cause of the crash, the wreckage would have been scattered over a wide area. However, the remains of this crash are scattered in a relatively confined space, increasing the likelihood that the crash was caused due to bad weather.
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An Air Algerie airliner crashed Thursday in northeastern Mali, according to a statement from the airline. It had departed from Burkina Faso with 110 passengers and 6 crew members. Of those passengers, 50 are reported to be French, and 1 American.
The air navigation services lost contact with the plane about 50 minutes after it took off. French fighter jets were sent to look for the plane, by which the wreckage was found in Mali.
Although airline officials told Reuters that the plane has indeed crashed, there are no reports detailing the exact cause of the crash.
Weather conditions, although there were thunderstorms along the way, were not atypical or particularly violent. USA Today quoted Anthonay Sagliani from AccuWeather.
“In general, there were scattered showers and thunderstorms across all of Burkina Faso and the southern half of Mali,” Sagliani said. “This was with the monsoon trough which is typically found here in late July. So this activity was quite normal.”
As of yet, there are no reports of casualties or details of the crash. Kara Terki, a representative of Air Algerie, said during a news conference that the passengers are being transported to Europe, the Middle East, or Canada.
