Hollande: No Survivors in Air Algerie Crash, Black Box Found
There were no survivors of the 110-passenger Air Algerie flight that crashed in Mali this week, French president Francois Hollande said today. Nearly half of the plane's passengers were French nationals.
Hollande also said that one of the plane's two black boxes had been found amidst the wreckage, near the Mali-Burkina Faso border. French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he believed the crash was weather-related, but that "no theory can be excluded at this point," referencing Islamist militants who have clashed with French soldiers in Mali: "Terrorist groups are in the zone. ... We know these groups are hostile to Western interests." French troops deployed in the country have begun an investigation of the wreckage.
Passengers included "51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian," the Associated Press reports.
[Image via AP]