Second black box from doomed Air Algerie flight found

Experts have found the second black box of the doomed Air Algérie aircraft that crashed in remote northern Mali, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali said.

A French military drone found the crashed plane in the Gossi area of Mali near the border with Burkina Faso, from where the flight had taken off en route for Algiers. About 100 French soldiers, based in Mali as part of Operation Serval to drive Islamic extremists from the African state, arrived at the site on Friday morning.

All 118 people on board – 112 passengers, including 54 French citizens, and six Spanish crew – had perished in the accident. Earlier reports had put the number of passengers and crew at 116.

Authorities said the plane broke on impact rather than in the sky, all but ruling out the remote possibility it was shot down. Flight AH5017 had taken off from Ougadougou, capital of Burkino Faso, in the early hours of Thursday.

About 40 minutes later, shortly after the pilot asked to divert from his flight route to avoid heavy storms, the aircraft dropped off the radar. It was only after the plane failed to arrive as scheduled in Algiers that it was announced missing.

The second black box may now help to determine what caused the plane to go down, according to a statement by the UN mission.

The Burkinabe government flew three family members of those killed to the crash site on Saturday so they could see the aftermath for themselves, said spokesman Victorien Sawadogo.

In Paris, the French president, François Hollande, also met victims' families. Nearly half of those who perished on flight AH5017 were French.

Spanish and Algerian officials flew to Burkina Faso to express their condolences. All six members of flight AH 5017 were Spanish.