Air Crash in Algeria Kills 102

One person reportedly survives

The jetliner of Air Algerie airline with 97 passengers on board crashed soon after it took off from Taman Rasset airport, in the south of Algeria. This was reported by AFP with reference to APS news agency. The crash took place in Sahara Desert, 1900 kilometers far from the capital of the country, which was the plane’s destination point.

There were 97 passengers on board the plane, as well as several members of the crew. It s known that all passengers and crewmembers died as a result of the crash, although one person managed to stay alive. The total number of victims is 102.

Boeing 737-200 jetliner was heading to the capital of Algeria. The plane crashed at 3:45 p.m. local time (5:45 Moscow time). Nothing has been reported about an act of terrorism on board the plane. Most likely, the crash was caused with a technical malfunction. Algerian Prime Minister Ali Benflis set up an emergency committee to investigate the reasons of the air crash.

RIA Novosti reported that the air crash killed all crewmembers and passengers. The Algerian government has not released any official statement yet. News agencies report that it was the first air crash in the history of the Algerian modern civil aviation.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov