Wreckage of missing Algerian airliner found in Mali

The wreckage of an Air Algerie plane missing since early Thursday with 116 people on board has been found in Mali near the Burkina Faso border, an army coordinator in Ouagadougou said.

"We have found the Algerian plane. The wreck has been located ... 50 kilometres north of the Burkina Faso border" in the Malian region of Gossi, said General Gilbert Diendiere of the Burkina Faso army.

A witness had earlier reported seeing the plane "falling" in the region of Gossi and the general said they were taking the reports seriously as they matched radar images of the flight path.

"That is where we will strengthen our search," he had added.

Flight AH5017, which originated in Ouagadougou and was bound for Algiers with 51 French nationals aboard, according to Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, went missing amid reports of heavy storms, company sources and officials said.

It had been presumed to have been lost even before French President Francois Hollande went on TV to announce: "Everything leads us to believe that the plane has crashed."

He said the plane's Spanish crew had signalled they were altering course "due to particularly difficult weather conditions".

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was earlier cited as saying by Algerian radio that the plane dropped off the radar at Gao, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from the Algerian border.

"Contact was lost with the McDonnell Douglas 83 at 1:47, a little after the pilots said they were diverting from the route due to meteorological reasons," Fabius had said.

The airline said it also had 24 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, six Spanish, five Canadians, four Germans and two Luxembourg nationals on board.

Mali, Algeria, Niger and France coordinated their search efforts under the umbrella of the French-led military intervention in Mali, Operation Serval.

"Even though the aircraft was above Mali it was in airspace managed by the control centre in Niamey in Niger," an air traffic control official told AFP.

Aviation sources told AFP the MD-83 was leased from Spanish company Swiftair.

Its six-member crew were all Spanish, said Spain's airline pilots' union Sepla, and Swiftair confirmed the aircraft went missing less than an hour after takeoff.

The plane had apparently been given the "all clear" following an inspection in France only this week, the French civil aviation authority DGAC said.

In France, two crisis units had been set up, at the DGAC and at the foreign ministry, DGAC said, in addition to another two at Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris and at Marseille airport.

DGAC said that many passengers had been due to catch onward connecting flights to Paris and Marseille.

In Mali, the prime minister's office also said contact was lost around Gao.

"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," an airline source said.

"Contact was lost after the change of course."

A controller in Mali, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the area was rocked by "strong storms" overnight.

Air Algerie, in a statement carried by national news agency APS, said it had initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.

In Cuba, the daughter of President Raul Castro assured journalists she was alive and well, contradicting reports that she had been on board the flight.

Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay rights activist, said she had been told there was another passenger of the same name aboard flight AH5017.

The crash comes less than six months after one of Algeria's worst air disasters.

In February, a C-130 military aircraft carrying 78 people crashed in poor weather in the mountainous northeast, killing more than 70 people.

The plane had been flying from the desert garrison town of Tamanrasset in Algeria's deep south to Constantine, 320 kilometres east of Algiers.

Tamanrasset was the site of the country's worst-ever civilian air disaster, in March 2003.

In that accident, all but one of the 103 people on board were killed when an Air Algerie Boeing 737-200 crashed on takeoff after one of its engines caught fire.

The sole survivor, a young Algerian soldier, was critically injured.

SOURCE

Fastjet takes EasyJet low-cost model into African airspace

The low-cost model pioneered by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou that rocked Europe's traditional airlines is spreading across Africa. Tickets went on sale last week for the first flights on Fastjet, the latest brainchild of the Greek entrepreneur, which will start flying from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania at the end of the month for prices starting at 32,000 Tanzanian shillings (£13) – plus the inevitable baggage charges and taxes.

While Fastjet has yet to secure the final paperwork for its transnational routes, it expects to be selling Kenyan and Ugandan destinations alongside its regional service within weeks, and ultimately aims to grow into a pan-African low-cost airline.

Fastjet's chief executive, Ed Winter, a former director of easyJet under Haji-Ioannou, said: "It takes a long time in Africa to work beyond the bureaucracy and the politics, but the vision is a network across Africa."

The business has merged with Fly540, an airline that will gradually disappear as Fastjet grows, but gives it assets in Angola and Ghana as well as east Africa. Broader expansion will mean working with other airlines, to circumvent red tape, although consumers will fly in aircraft branded with Fastjet's African grey parrot logo and book through the same website.

Africa is ripe for aviation investment, with huge distances between cities and poor road and rail infrastructure. However, a poor safety record has blighted African airlines, with many carriers barred from European airspace by safety regulators.

Winter said: "At the moment, getting around is incredibly difficult. Put in a reliable service and people will want it. We'll be bringing travel to people who don't even dream of flying." He promised safety would be "everyone's number one priority" with pilot training consistent and centralised.

He said the cost of flying in Africa averaged four times that of Europe and that savings were clearly possible: "It's the standard low-cost model. You utilise assets, plan properly, get smart people to be efficient and drive lower costs.

"Fast turnarounds will be a challenge – some airports in Africa are not equipped to deal with that. But the lessons we've learned around the world from low-cost airlines will be imported into Africa."

Haji-Ioannou, who first got the business plan under way in partnership with Lonrho, retains a 5% shareholding and a consultancy agreement. He will join Fastjet's board but will not,Winter said, be "hands-on".

Winter hopes the African grey parrot is an apposite logo: "It's smart, and lives the longest of them all."

SOURCE

Wow, low cost business model heading into Africa. Not really sure if it will work out, but if it does, I'm sure it will be a gold mine, like the diamonds in Africa. What is in everybody's mine is definitely airport security, aircraft safety and overall infrastructure in all airports in Africa.