Poor weather was the most likely cause of the crash of an Air Algerie flight over the West African state of Mali with 116 people on board, French officials said on Friday.
Investigators at the scene of the crash had concluded the airliner broke apart when it hit the ground, the officials said, suggesting this meant it was unlikely to have been the victim of an attack.
"The aircraft was destroyed at the moment it crashed," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio of the wreckage of the plane carrying 51 French nationals which crashed in Mali near the border with Burkina Faso on Thursday.
The Air Algerie MD-83 aircraft was carrying 116 people, including five Canadians, from Burkina Faso to Algeria's capital when it crashed early Thursday over northern Mali. (Kevin Cleyhens/Associated Press)
"We think the aircraft crashed for reasons linked to the weather conditions. No theory can be excluded at this point ... but that is indeed the most likely theory," he added.
Separately, French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said the strong smell of aircraft fuel at the crash site and the fact that the debris was scattered over a relatively small area also suggested the cause of the crash was linked to weather, a technical problem or a cumulation of such factors.
"We exclude – and have done so from the start – any ground strike," Cuvillier told France 2 television.
5 Canadian victims
CBC News confirmed Thursday that four of the five Canadians on board the jet were from the same family. Winmalo Somda, his wife Angelica and their two children, from Quebec, were killed in the crash.
Isabelle Prévost, of Sherbrooke, Que., was travelling with the Somda family when the plane went down over northern Mali.
Isabelle Prévost, of Sherbrooke, Que., was on board the Air Algerige Flight that crashed over northern Mali, family confirmed to Radio-Canada. Five Canadians were on the plane. (CBC)
Her partner, Danny Frappier, said Thursday that Prévost was on vacation and was originally supposed to be travelling with the couple's three children, aged five, seven and nine.
Frappier said he tried to get more information from official sources but that details were not yet clear.
"We're hoping there's part of her body that can be repatriated, some kind of proof that she was really there, that she's really dead, I don't know," he said Thursday.
Mamadou Zoungrana, who resides in Gatineau, Que., said he believes his wife and two young boys aged six and 13, were on board the flight. They are not Canadian citizens, but Zoungrana said they were on the plane as part of their trip to join him in Canada after two years apart.
He said he hoped that they would eventually be granted citizenship after settling with him.
French troops to secure site
He added that a column of 100 soldiers from the French force stationed in the region were on their way to secure the crash site near the northern town of Gossi. France deployed troops to Mail last year to halt an al Qaeda-backed insurgency.
Aviation officials lost contact with Flight AH5017 en route from Burkina Faso to Algeria early on Thursday after a request by the pilot to change course due to bad weather.
Burkina Faso authorities said the passenger list, in addition to the five Canadians aboard, included 51 French, 27 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, four Germans, two from Luxembourg, one Cameroonian, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukranian, one Swiss, one Nigerian and one Malian. Crash site investigators saw no survivors.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Air Algerie Flight AH5017 crash: Bad weather a likely cause, French officials say - CBC.ca
Dengan url
https://goartikelasik.blogspot.com/2014/07/air-algerie-flight-ah5017-crash-bad.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Air Algerie Flight AH5017 crash: Bad weather a likely cause, French officials say - CBC.ca
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Air Algerie Flight AH5017 crash: Bad weather a likely cause, French officials say - CBC.ca
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar