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No survivors from Air Algerie plane crash: French president

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No one survived the crash of an Air Algerie flight over Mali, French President Francois Hollande said on Thursday, adding that the plane’s black box flight recorder had been found.

“Sadly, there were no survivors” of flight AH5017 that had 116 people on board, including 51 French nationals, when it went down over northern Mali, Hollande said in televised comments.

The French military has recovered the flight recorder and was taking it to the city of Gao, he added.​

French President Francois Hollande speaking to the press at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Friday​.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, meanwhile, said the most likely cause of Thursday’s crash was bad weather conditions, although authorities were not excluding other hypotheses.

“We think that this plane crashed for reasons pertaining to meteorological conditions,” he said on RTL radio.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve arriving at meeting at the Elysee Palace.

The jet’s Spanish crew had signalled they were altering course due to difficult weather conditions, and company sources and officials said there had been reports of heavy storms at the time.

French junior minister for Transport and Maritime Economy Frederic Cuvillier  said the possibility of a strike from the ground had been ruled out “from the start", rejecting speculation that rebels in Mali’s restive north could have shot the plane down.

Source: AFP