Air Algerie black box found; President Hollande says no survivors

July 25, 2014

Ouagadougo/Burkina Faso, Jul 25: French officials dispatched a military unit to secure the site in restive northern Mali where an Air Algerie plane crashed with the loss of 116 people. France's interior minister said Friday that terrorism cannot be excluded as a cause for the tragedy, though it was likely due to bad weather.

French president Francois Hollande announced Friday that there were no survivors in the crash of the MD-83 aircraft, owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria's flagship carrier, which disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, for Algiers. The plane had requested permission to change course due to bad weather.

Speaking after a crisis meeting, Hollande also announced that one of the aircraft's two black boxes has been found in the wreckage, in the Gossi region near the border with Burkina Faso. It is being taken to the northern Mali city of Gao.

A French Reaper drone based in Niger spotted the wreckage, French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier told France-Info radio on Friday. Two helicopter teams also overflew, noting that the wreckage was in a concentrated area. A column of soldiers in some 30 vehicles were dispatched to the site, he said.

A statement early Friday from the Hollande's office said the aircraft had been clearly identified “despite its state of disintegration.”

Quick discovery of the wreckage is “decisive” in piecing together what happened, the transport minister said, describing the aircraft as “disintegrated” and debris “in an apparently small area.”

“We think the plane went down due to weather conditions, but no hypothesis can be excluded as long as we don't have the results of an investigation,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio.

“Terrorist groups are in the zone. ... We know these groups are hostile to Western interests,” Cazeneuve said.

The pilots had sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said Thursday.

French forces intervened in northern Mali in January 2013 to rout Islamist extremists controlling the region. A French soldier was killed earlier this month near the major town of Gao, where French troops remain. Separatist Touaregs also have been fighting each other.

Nearly half the 110 passengers aboard the plane were French, and France is deeply shaken by the drama. The president promised to mobilize all French military and civilian means in the region and call on partners to help.

The French gave the location of the crash site as in the Gossi region of Mali, on the border with Burkina Faso.

“We sent men, with the agreement of the Mali government, to the site, and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area,” said Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.

The crash was the third airline disaster within a week.

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine; the U.S. has blamed it on separatists firing a surface-to-air missile. On Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.

French forces had joined the search for the Air Algerie flight, alongside Algeria and other neighboring countries plus the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA. Algerian aircraft also participated in the hunt.

Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, and left Burkina Faso for Algiers at 0117 GMT Thursday.

The passengers were 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxembourg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Ouedraogo said. The six crew members were Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

Air Algerie wreckage found near Mali, marking third airline tragedy in 7 days

Air Algerie
Ouagadougo/Burkina Faso, Jul 25: An Air Algerie jetliner carrying 116 people crashed Thursday in a rainstorm over restive Mali, and its wreckage was found near the border of neighboring Burkina Faso — the third major international aviation disaster in a week.

The plane, owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria's flagship carrier, disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off from Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou for Algiers.

French fighter jets, UN peacekeepers and others hunted for the wreckage of the MD-83 in the remote region, where scattered separatist violence may hamper an eventual investigation into what happened.

It was found about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border of Burkina Faso near the village of Boulikessi in Mali, a Burkina Faso presidential aide said.

"We sent men, with the agreement of the Mali government, to the site, and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area," said Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.

"They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," he said.

He told The Associated Press that rescuers went to the area after they had heard from a resident that he saw the plane go down 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Malian town of Gossi. Burkina Faso's government spokesman said the country will observe 48 hours of mourning.

Malian state television also said the debris of Flight 5017 was found in the village of Boulikessi and was found by a helicopter from Burkina Faso. Algeria's transport minister also said the wreckage had apparently been found. French officials could not confirm the discovery late Thursday.

"We found the plane by accident" near Boulikessi, said Sidi Ould Brahim, a Tuareg separatist who travelled from Mali to a refugee camp for Malians in Burkina Faso.

"The plane was burned, there were traces of rain on the plane, and bodies were torn apart," he told AP.

Families from France to Canada and beyond had been waiting anxiously for word about the jetliner and the fate of their loved ones aboard. Nearly half of the passengers were French, many en route home from Africa.

"Everything allows us to believe this plane crashed in Mali," French President Francois Hollande said after an emergency meeting in Paris. He said the crew changed its flight path because of "particularly difficult weather conditions."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, his face drawn and voice somber, told reporters, "If this catastrophe is confirmed, it would be a major tragedy that hits our entire nation, and many others."

The pilots had sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain, said Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo.

French forces, who have been in Mali since January 2013 to rout al-Qaida-linked extremists who had controlled the north, searched for the plane, alongside the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA.

Algerian Transport Minister Omar Ghoul, whose country's planes were also searching for wreckage, described it as a "serious and delicate affair."

The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then al-Qaida-linked Islamic extremists after a military coup in 2012.

The French-led intervention scattered the extremists, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government. Meanwhile, the threat from Islamic militants hasn't disappeared, and France is giving its troops a new and larger anti-terrorist mission across the region.

A senior French official said it seems unlikely that fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry that could shoot down a jetliner at cruising altitude. While al-Qaida's North Africa branch is believed to have an SA-7 surface-to-air missile, also known as MANPADS, most airliners would normally fly out of range of these shoulder-fired weapons. They can hit targets flying up to roughly 12,000-15,000 feet.

The crash of the Air Algerie plane is the latest in a series of aviation disasters.

Fliers around the globe have been on edge ever since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March on its way to Beijing. Searchers have yet to find a single piece of wreckage from the jet with 239 people on board.

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine, and the US has blamed it on separatists firing a surface-to-air missile.

Earlier this week, US and European airlines started canceling flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed near the city's airport. Finally, on Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.

It's easy to see why fliers are jittery, but air travel is relatively safe.

There have been two deaths for every 100 million passengers on commercial flights in the last decade, excluding acts of terrorism. Travelers are much more likely to die driving to the airport than stepping on a plane. There are more than 30,000 motor-vehicle deaths in the US each year, a mortality rate eight times greater than that in planes.

Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, and left Burkina Faso for Algiers at 0117 GMT Thursday (9:17 p.m. EDT Wednesday), but had not arrived at the scheduled time of 0510 GMT (1:10 a.m. EDT Thursday). It said the crew included two pilots and four flight attendants.

The passengers included 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxembourg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgian, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Ouedraogo said. The six crew members were Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots' union.

Swiftair said the plane was built in 1996, with two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 PW engines.

Swiftair took ownership of the plane on 24 October, 2012, after it spent nearly 10 months unused in storage, according to Flightglobal's Ascend Online Fleets, which sells and tracks information about aircraft. It had more than 37,800 hours of flight time and has made more than 32,100 takeoffs and landings.

It was the fifth crash — and the second with fatalities — for Swiftair since its founding in 1986, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.

The MD-83 is part of a series of jets built since the early 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, a US company now owned by Boeing Co. The MD-80s are single-aisle planes that were a workhorse of the airline industry for short- and medium-range flights for nearly two decades. As jet fuel prices spiked in recent years, airlines have rapidly being replacing the jets with newer, fuel-efficient models such as Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

There are 496 other MD-80s being flown, according to Ascend.

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News Network
March 18,2024

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Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory in the just-concluded presidential polls, securing him a fifth term in power. While Putin hailed the results as an indication of "trust" and "hope" in him, critics panned the polls for its preordained nature.

As early results poured in, Putin won 87.8% of the vote, the highest-ever result in Russia's post-Soviet history, Reuters quoted Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) exit polls. The Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) put Putin on 87%. 

If he completes the term, the 71-year-old President will also script history as Russia's longest-serving leader for more than 200 years, overtaking Josef Stalin. 

While Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov finished second with just under 4%, newcomer Vladislav Davankov third, and ultra-nationalist Leonid Slutsky fourth, partial results suggested.

In his victory speech, Putin said he would prioritise resolving tasks associated with Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine and would strengthen the Russian military. 

"We have many tasks ahead. But when we are consolidated - no matter who wants to intimidate us, suppress us - nobody has ever succeeded in history, they have not succeeded now, and they will not succeed ever in the future," said Putin. He was welcomed by his supporters to the stage with "Putin Putin" chants. He also hailed the results as an indication of "trust" and "hope" in him.

Later, while interacting with reporters, Putin also warned the West that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario. "It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this," Putin told reporters after winning the biggest-ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.

Meanwhile, the Western world condemned the elections, stating the polls were neither free nor fair. While Germany called it a "pseudo-election" under an authoritarian ruler reliant on censorship, repression and violence, UK Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron condemned "the illegal holding of elections on Ukrainian territory".

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said, "The Russian dictator is simulating another election".

Earlier during the elections, heeding an opposition call to protest, hundreds of  Russians crowded outside polling stations at noon Sunday, on the last day of the elections. The associates of Alexei Navalny, the critic of Putin who died earlier this month in an Arctic prison, had urged people who were unhappy with Putin or the war in Ukraine to go to the polls at noon on Sunday. Many turned up and lines outside a number of polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world appeared to swell at that time.

Among those heeding the call was Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, who joined a long line in Berlin. She later told reporters that she cast her vote and wrote her late husband's name on the ballot.  Asked whether she had a message for Putin, Navalnaya replied: "Please stop asking for messages from me or from somebody for Mr. Putin. There could be no negotiations and nothing with Mr. Putin, because he's a killer, he's a gangster."

One woman in Moscow, who said her name was Yulia, told the AP that she was voting for the first time. "Even if my vote doesn't change anything, my conscience will be clear ... for the future that I want to see for our country," she said. Like others, she didn't give her full name because of security concerns.

Another Moscow voter, who also identified himself only by his first name, Vadim, said he hoped for change, but added that "unfortunately, it's unlikely".

More acts of rebellion were reported on Saturday too. Cases were filed against at least 15 people for pouring dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbing Molotov cocktails at polling stations. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s CEC, said 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia were targeted, including eight arson attempts.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Ottawa, Mar 16: An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter were killed in a "suspicious" fire which tore through their home last week in Canada's Ontario province, police said on Friday.

A fire engulfed a home at the Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive area of Brampton on March 7, a press release by the Peel Police said.

After the blaze was put out, investigators located what was believed to be human remains within the gutted house, but the number of people killed couldn't be ascertained at the time.

The charred remains were on Friday identified as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.

Police said that they resided at the address before the fire.

Peel police Constable Taryn Young on Friday said the fire had been deemed suspicious, the CTV news channel reported.

"At this time, we are investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we are deeming this as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has deemed that this fire was not accidental," the report quoted Young as saying.

"There's not much left to it," Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.

"Looking into something like that as a fire marshal, I'm sure it's very tough when there is not much left to look at. But we are exhausting all avenues," she said.

The deceased family's neighbour, Kenneth Yousaf, said that the family had lived on the street for about 15 years, and he never noticed any problems with them.

Yousaf said he was alerted to the fire last week by a family member, who heard a big "bang." "When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was down to the ground," the report quoted Yousaf as saying.

In a press release, police said they are continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.

"The circumstances surrounding the house fire remains the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives," police said.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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