‘No survivors’ in Air Algerie crash

French President Francois Hollande said Friday that everyone on board Air Algerie’s Flight 5017 died when it crashed on Thursday, and one of the plane’s black boxes has been found, according to reports.

At least 116 people, nearly half of whom were French, were killed when the Algerian jetliner went down.

“There are, alas, no survivors,” Hollande said, according to the Associated Press. “I share the pain of families living through this terrible ordeal.”

{mosads}Terrorism hasn’t been ruled out as a cause for the crash, but officials say it was likely caused by bad weather, the AP said.

Ethnic Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists control parts of Northern Mali.

Pilots on-board Flight 5017, however, had sent a final message to Niger air control requesting that its route be changed because of heavy rain, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said Thursday.

The plane took off from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and was destined for Algiers’ Houari Boumediene Airport.

The crash was the third major plane crash in just a week. Malaysia Airways Flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine last week, killing all 298 people on-board. A TransAsia Airways passenger plane crashed in a storm in Taiwan Wednesday, killing at least 48 people.

 

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