Flight AH5017 Drops off radar over Burkina Faso

Specialun

Breaking News http://news.sky.com/story/1306685/algeria-plane-disappears-from-radar

Donkey Oaty

Maybe change title to "Air Algerie flight AH5017 goes off radar" or similar?

CrazyRabbit

..and the possibility that the plane could have been shot down.

A lot of disasters recently. I can't remember any other time when we had so many in such quick succession.

http://news.sky.com/story/1306685/algeria-plane-disappears-from-radar

An Algerian passenger plane has reportedly disappeared from radar while flying from the West African country of Burkina Faso.
The airliner carrying 110 passengers and six crew was flying from Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou to Algiers when it vanished around 50 minutes into the flight.
"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan," Algeria's APS state news agency quoted the airline as saying.
Flight AH5017 is owned by Spanish private airline Swiftair and operated by Air Algerie.
Swiftair said the aircraft took off from Burkina Faso at 1.17am local time and was supposed to land in Algiers at 5.10am local time but never reached its destination.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-83's flight path was not immediately clear.
Ouagadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali where unrest continues in the north of the country.
However, a senior French official said it is unlikely that fighters in Mali could shoot down a plane.
They are known to have shoulder-fired weapons which could not hit an aircraft travelling at a cruising altitude of some 33,000ft.

CrazyRabbit

And just read about a train crash in India that killed 19 children. Jaysus...so many disasters.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0724/632728-india/

At least 19 children and their driver were killed in India today when a passenger train crashed into a school bus.
The accident happened at an unmanned level crossing near Masaipet village in Medak district.
Indian Railways spokesman Anil Kumar Saxena said the bus had not stopped to check if the way was clear.
Reports said the bus was dragged several hundred metres down the tracks.
Police said the bus was carrying 32 children, 12 of whom died at the scene.
Seven more died in a nearby hospital, where others are in critical condition.
The train was travelling from the city of Nanded in Maharashtra state to Hyderabad in newly formed neighbouring Telangana.
No one on the train was killed, officials said.
There have been a number of train accidents in India in recent years.
Last month, several coaches of a passenger train derailed in Bihar state, killing at least four people.
In May at least 20 people were killed when a passenger train derailed and hit a stationary goods train in Uttar Pradesh state.

Mr. G

http://www.thejournal.ie/air-algerie-missing-1587047-Jul2014/

Hopefully this will come back online. Scary what's happening at the moment.

jacksie66

This post has been deleted.

Donkey Oaty

Unconfirmed reports that it has crashed in Niger after trying to avoid bad weather conditions and another aircraft - also unconfirmed: at least 80 French nationals on board.

murpho999

jacksie66 wrote: »

And I've to fly home from New Zealand in a few weeks. Maybe I should get a dingy instead..

Why? Think of all the thousands of flights per day that arrive safely.

Many African airlines are not safe to fly with unfortunately.

Donkey Oaty

murpho999 wrote: »

Many African airlines are not safe to fly with unfortunately.

This was operated by a Spanish company.

Edit: Apologies, it is operated by Air Algerie, but owned by Swiftair.

kneemos

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

This was operated by a Spanish company.

Owned by a Spanish company,operated by Air Algerie.

BeerWolf

jacksie66 wrote: »

And I've to fly home from New Zealand in a few weeks. Maybe I should get a dingy instead..

Car accidents occur every day - does that stop people using cars?

Maximus Alexander

For **** sake. :mad:

AshF22

Poor souls on board. Really hope this plane is found in air or having found somewhere safe to land!! Getting really freaked out now by how many plane tragedies have occurred in such short time now!

Penny Tration

AshF22 wrote: »

Poor souls on board. Really hope this plane is found in air or having found somewhere safe to land!! Getting really freaked out now by how many plane tragedies have occurred in such short time now!

The airline have said it crashed in Niger, after deviating from the route due to storms.

Poor people.

Penny Tration

https://mobile.twitter.com/cctvnews/status/492260191212011520

AshF22

green_screen wrote: »

The airline have said it crashed in Niger, after deviating from the route due to storms.

Poor people.

Oh god I didn't know if that was speculation or not. Truly devastating!!

Augmerson

I went to look this up and the page request timed out..

Donkey Oaty

Some real conflicting information here.

BBC reporting that

Contact is believed to have been lost between Gao and Tessalit in north-eastern Mali.

and that area is being searched by UN representatives.

failinis

Just seen there that an Algerian Airliner has lost contact after being redirected due to bad weather and to avoid collision with another air craft.

"Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has lost contact with one of its planes flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara.

Contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou, the airline said.

The passenger airliner was last seen at 0155 GMT, it added. It should have landed at 0510.

Flight AH 5017 had 110 passengers and six crew on board, Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane, said.

"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan," Air Algerie officials, quoted by APS news agency (in French), said.

Swiftair said that the aircraft was an MD83 and that they were unable to establish contact with the plane.

An Algerian official had previously told Reuters that the plane was an Airbus A320.

An unnamed Air Algerie company source, speaking to AFP news agency, said: "The plane was not far from the Algerian frontier when the crew was asked to make a detour because of poor visibility and to prevent the risk of collision with another aircraft on the Algiers-Bamako route."

"Contact was lost after the change of course."

Flight AH 5017 flies the Ouagadougou-Algiers route four times a week, AFP reported.

Algerian nationals were among those on board, Algerian newspaper El-Nahar reported."
(Quote from BBC)

I don't have enough posts to link, but if some would oblige.

There has been quite a lot of air disasters since the start of a year, I hope this is not yet another.

danniemcq

mod

threads merged

failinis

Woops, I accidentally posted another thread on this but it's been fixed now.

Regardless of Algeria recognizing Israel as a state or not (as I think that has nothing to do with this), I hope this is not another air disaster, been so many this year.

Donkey Oaty

The authorities in Algiers say they do not rule out any hypothesis, including hijacking.

- BBC correspondent in West Africa.

What is strange is that it took so long for the news to break.

wretcheddomain

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

- BBC correspondent in West Africa.

What is strange is that it took so long for the news to break.

Surely if the plane went down in bad weather, the flight crew would have contacted ATC to declare an emergency.

danniemcq

MOD

Keep it on topic, no conspiracy theories on new world orders or the like please

ProfessorPlum

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Surely if the plane went down in bad weather, the flight crew would have contacted ATC to declare an emergency.

Maybe they were too busy dealing with trying to make the aircraft flyable.

It always amazes me that people question the lack of a Mayday call. Sometimes it just isn't a priority.

Soups123

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Maybe they were too busy dealing with trying to make the aircraft flyable.

It always amazes me that people question the lack of a Mayday call. Sometimes it just isn't a priority.

Still though you would expect a mayday if it was crash landing

ProfessorPlum

Soups123 wrote: »

Still though you would expect a mayday if it was crash landing

Why? What can some guy in ATC do for you except let the emergency services know where to put out the fire. That time and head space is better used trying to regain control of the situation to avoid the crash in the first place. There's a simple mantra of priority: 'Aviate, Navigate, Communicate'. Talking to ATC is in the 'communicate' bit. It's certainly a good idea to get a call out, but people read far too much into the lack of a call.

Luckycharms_74

jacksie66 wrote: »

And I've to fly home from New Zealand in a few weeks. Maybe I should get a dingy instead..

murpho999 wrote: »

Why? Think of all the thousands of flights per day that arrive safely.

Many African airlines are not safe to fly with unfortunately.

+1

Over 70k flights fly every day. Its safer than alot of other forms of transport

vicwatson

Mali don't have this military capability

Bacchus

They're saying it crashed now.

Soups123

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Why? What can some guy in ATC do for you except let the emergency services know where to put out the fire. That time and head space is better used trying to regain control of the situation to avoid the crash in the first place. There's a simple mantra of priority: 'Aviate, Navigate, Communicate'. Talking to ATC is in the 'communicate' bit. It's certainly a good idea to get a call out, but people read far too much into the lack of a call.

Every movie I watched had a mayday call when the plan was going down.

But in all seriousness I would have thought it standard protocall when its going to crash or it has a problem.

ProfessorPlum

Soups123 wrote: »

Every movie I watched had a mayday call when the plan was going down.

But in all seriousness I would have thought it standard protocall when its going to crash or it has a problem.

It's standard protocol to do the most important things first! Getting the call in comes after, and sometimes it doesn't come at all.

iDave

What a sh1t year for aviation

murpho999

iDave wrote: »

What a sh1t year for aviation

Not really, I would not say there are more crashes than any other year.

It's the manner of the 2 Malaysian air incidents that have generated a lot of publicity that can give the impression that things are bad.

ProfessorPlum

Sh1t week then. What a sh1t week for aviation.:(

Mondo123

Not a good flyer at the best of times an typically as luck would have it due to take a long haul flight (NZ) for a holiday coming weekend. Cant say this last week has helped at all.
Reckon I will be a bag of nerves... to many accidents all at once...

murpho999

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Sh1t week then. What a sh1t week for aviation.:(

Fair enough, hard to argue with that.

I still don't think it's unsafe or anything like that.

o1s1n

murpho999 wrote: »

Fair enough, hard to argue with that.

I still don't think it's unsafe or anything like that.

It's not unsafe, but there is indeed something ominous when sitting in a plane in such a short period after events like this.

I took a return flight home on Tuesday and was definitely a bit more on edge than normal.

I didn't think I was going to die, but thoughts of what happened to those people and the remote possibility of it happening to me flashed before my eyes a few times!

Bog Standard User

Mondo123 wrote: »

Not a good flyer at the best of times an typically as luck would have it due to take a long haul flight (NZ) for a holiday coming weekend. Cant say this last week has helped at all.
Reckon I will be a bag of nerves... to many accidents all at once...

take a sleeping pill ... you'll be grand like.

YFlyer

iDave wrote: »

What a sh1t year for aviation

Ryanair pilots getting a bad deal.

Thrill

2 French fighter jets located wreckage of Air Algerie flight in Mali, French defense ministry tells Fox News

Donkey Oaty

Fidel Castro's niece, LGBT activist Mariela Castro, was on board, reported by ABC news.

Donkey Oaty

Looks like the reports about Mariela Castro are untrue - BBC reports:

Sources from the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX), where Mariela Castro is the director, said to BBC Mundo that she is taking part in an event in Havana.