Algerian officials confirmed the Air Algerie flight that disappeared Thursday morning with 116 people onboard has crashed, Reuters reported.
It was not immediately known if there were any survivors or what caused Flight AH5017 to crash after taking off from Burkina Faso in West Africa.
Jean Bertin Ouedrago, Transport Minister for Burkina Faso, told the news agency the fight asked to switch routes to avoid a storm in the region.
"I can confirm that it has crashed," Ouedrago said.
The Swiftair MD-83 aircraft disappeared from radar Thursday morning about 50 minutes after taking off from Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou. It was headed for Algiers, the Algerian capital, when radar lost track of it somewhere over Mali, Reuters reported.
The plane took off at 9:55 p.m. ET on Wednesday, which means it was missing for several hours before news of its disappearance broke, according to Fox News.
Six crew members and 110 passengers were aboard the flight, Swiftair, a private Spanish airline and the plane's owner, said.
"In keeping with procedures, Air Algerie has launched its emergency plan," the airline said according to the Algerie Presse Service.
The plane was scheduled to land in Algiers at 1:10 a.m. local time, according to Fox News. But its flight path remains unclear. Officials from Mali, which lies under the flight's likely route, said the country's north was hit with a sandstorm Wednesday night, Reuters reported.
An unnamed airline official told French news agency AFP 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."
Swiftair, a private Spanish airline and the plane's owner, said it is trying to determine what happened to Flight AH5017.
French officials said nearly half of the passengers aboard were French citizens, Reuters reported. Two French military planes were dispatched to aid in the search, as well as aircraft from Niger security.
Issa Saly Maiga, head of Mali's National Civil Aviation Agency, said a search is being conducted across several African countries.
"We do not know if the plane is Malian territory," Maiga told Reuters. "Aviation authorities are mobilized in all the countries concerned- Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Algeria and even Spain."
