French forces found the “disintegrated” wreckage of the Algerian jet in Northern Mali but with intact flight recorders and no survivors, French President Francoise Hollande on Friday.
“Regrettably, there were no survivors. I share the pain of the families, who are going through terrible hardship,” Hollande said.
He refrained from drawing conclusions on what caused the accident wanting the investigation into the crash to be completed first.
“What we already know is that the plane’s debris is concentrated in a limited area,” he said. “But it is still too early to draw any conclusions, they will come in time. There are hypotheses, including weather conditions, but we are not putting any of them aside because we want to find out everything that happened.”
Airline authorities said Air Algerie Flight 5017 was carrying 116 people, mostly French nationals, when it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso to Algeria, CNN reported. President Hollande later corrected the figures to 118 but declined to explain further details.
Investigators from Paris said the accident was most likely caused by severe weather and has ruled out a possible rebel attack.
“We rule out — and have from the start — any ground strike,” Frédéric Cuvillier, the French junior minister for transport, told France 2 television on Friday, The New York Times reported.
The plane vanished from the radar less than 50 minutes into the flight. According to the Burkina Faso government, the plane was able to make contact with air traffic controllers in Niamey, Niger and told them they encountered storms.
Mali will lead the investigation but the French Bureau of Investigations and Analysis will also play a huge role in the probe.
The incident is the third major aviation disaster in just a week, following the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the crashing of Taiwan TransAsia Airways Flight GE222, killing 298 and 48 people respectively.
