Air Algerie Flight AH5017: What we do and do not know

The wreckage of AH 5017, the flight from Algeria's national airline Air Algerie that disappeared with 116 people on board yesterday, has been found in Mali. Officials say there were no survivors.

What we know

Flight AH 5017 was travelling from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso to Algiers, across the Sahara desert when it disappeared. Air traffic controllers say that contact was lost from the plane about 50 minutes after take off, after pilots reported severe stormy weather.

There were 116 people on board - 110 passengers and six crew, including 51 French citizens and six Spanish crew members.

The crash site, near Boulikessi, had been identified by the Burkina Faso army. General Gilbert Diendere told reporters there were "no survivors" at the crash site. "They found human remains and the wreckage of the plane totally burnt and scattered," he said.

The plane took off from Ouagadougou at 1.17am local time and was scheduled to land in Algeria at 5.10am local time.

What has been reported

France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL that he believed the aircraft "crashed for reasons linked to the weather conditions".

Yesterday, an unnamed Air Algerie source told AFP that contact was lost after the plane made a detour because of poor visibility: "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.

"Contact was lost after the change of course."

This image purports to show the weather at the time of the crash:

Spanish private airline company Swiftair, which FlightRadar reported have leased the plane to Air Algrie, said the plane was an MD-83 aircraft.