YEREVAN, JULY 25, ARMENPRESS. Air Algerie flight crashed in eastern Mali killing all 116 people on board. Air navigation services lost track of the plane around 50 minutes after it took off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso en route to the Algerian capital Algiers. As reports “Armenpress”, this morning French president Francois Hollande refused to rule out the prospect that the plane was downed in a terror attack, although shepherds working in the area say they saw the plane burst into flames after it was struck by lightning.

The plane had rerouted due to heavy rains shortly before the contact was lost. Flight AH5017 had 116 on board at time, including 51 French. Ten members of a single French family were also killed in the disaster. All six crew members were Spanish employees of the plane owner Swiftair

Officially the nationality breakdown of the 110 passengers stands at eight Lebanese, 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian.

French officials have dispatched a military unit to secure the crash site, which is in territory dominated by al-Qaeda linked Islamist militants and Tuareg separatists, Francois Hollande said this morning

Air navigation services lost track of the Air Algerie-operated Swiftair MD-83 around 50 minutes into the flight after the crew reportedly asked to change course over fears it was flying into a storm.

This morning French president Francois Hollande confirmed wreckage of the plane was found near the remote Saharan village of Boulikessi on the Mali-Burkina Faso border.

Speaking after a crisis meeting, Hollande also announced that one of the aircraft's two black boxes has been found in the wreckage. It is now being taken to the northern Mali city of Gao. 

Mr Hollande has said that France will spare no efforts to uncover the cause of the crash - the third major plane disaster around the world within a week.

'There are hypotheses, notably weather-related, but we don't rule out anything because we want to know what happened,' the French president said.

'What we know is that the debris is concentrated in a limited space, but it is too soon to draw conclusions.'

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve added: 'Terrorist groups are in the zone. ... We know these groups are hostile to Western interests.'