No Survivors in Airplane Crash in Mali

A  McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft which operated as Air Algerie flight 5017 from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to Algiers crashed in Mali approximately 50 minutes into its flight on Thursday, July 24, 2014 — and none of the 110 passengers and six crew members survived.

The aircraft was eventually located later that evening southeast of the city of Gossi in Mali approximately 18 hours after Air Algerie initially lost contact with the aircraft operated by Swiftair. Both black boxes have been recovered from the crash site located north of the border of Mali and Burkina Faso.

The Minister of Transport, the chairman of the crisis unit, and the chief executive officer of Air Algerie were greatly affected by the crash of the fate of flight 5017; and they have expressed their strong support and their deepest and sincere condolences to the families of the victims of this tragedy.

The latest statements released from Air Algerie with regards to the latest updates are found here at the official Internet web site of Air Algerie — although the communications are in French. One of those communications breaks down the 15 nationalities of the passengers aboard the aircraft, which include:

• 52 French
• 28 Burkina Faso
• 8 Lebanese
• 6 Spanish
• 5 Canadian
• 4 Algerian
• 4 German
• 2 Luxembourg
• 1 Cameroon
• 1 Nigerian
• 1 Ukrainian
• 1 Swiss
• 1 Mali
• 1 Belgian
• 1 Egyptian

This crash is the latest in a series of serious incidents in recent months, which include but are not limited to:

• The crash of an ATR72 aircraft which operated as TransAsia Airways flight 222 in Taiwan on Wednesday, July 23, 2014 in inclement weather caused by a typhoon, carrying 54 passengers and four members of the flight crew — none of whom reportedly survived
• A Boeing 777-2H6ER aircraft which operated as Malaysia Airlines flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur had reportedly been shot down by a missile on Thursday, July 17, 2014 in eastern Ukraine near the border with Russia — all of the 298 passengers and flight crew members aboard the aircraft were reportedly killed — resulting in airlines adjusting flight routes to avoid the air space above Ukraine until further notice
• The mysterious disappearance of a Boeing 777-200 aircraft which operated as Malaysia Airlines flight 370 — carrying 227 passengers and 12 members of the flight crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing — early in the morning on Saturday, March 8, 2014 somewhere over the Gulf of Thailand en route

As with the incidences listed above, my thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues who lost their loved ones in this airplane crash.

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