Black box found at site of Air Algerie crash
Source: AP-Excite
By ELAINE GANLEY
PARIS (AP) — French officials dispatched a military unit to secure the site in restive northern Mali where an Air Algerie plane crashed with the loss of 116 people. France's interior minister said Friday that terrorism cannot be excluded as a cause for the tragedy, though it was likely due to bad weather.
French president Francois Hollande announced Friday that there were no survivors in the crash of the MD-83 aircraft, owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria's flagship carrier, which disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, for Algiers. The plane had requested permission to change course due to bad weather.
Speaking after a crisis meeting, Hollande also announced that one of the aircraft's two black boxes has been found in the wreckage, in the Gossi region near the border with Burkina Faso. It is being taken to the northern Mali city of Gao.
A French Reaper drone based in Niger spotted the wreckage, French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier told France-Info radio on Friday. Two helicopter teams also overflew, noting that the wreckage was in a concentrated area. A column of soldiers in some 30 vehicles were dispatched to the site, he said.
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An arrival information screen shows the delayed Air Algerie flight 5017 (top) at the Houari Boumediene airport near Algiers, Algeria, Thursday, July 24, 2014. An Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali and "probably crashed" according to the plane's owner and government officials in France and Burkina Faso. (AP Photo/Sidali Djarboub)
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