Air Algerie Flight AH5017

Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has lost contact with one of its planes, flight AH5017 flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers. Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal issed a statement saying "The plane disappeared when flying over Gao, in Mali, 500km from the Algerian border."

And this is just a few days after another plane crash in Taiwan. What is going on? Air travel is, allegedly, the safest mode of modern transportation - but with these recent disastrous events we must start doubting that notion.

At least there's no mystery about the Taiwan crash and the black boxes were immediately recovered, but what a week it's been for aviation.

Contact with AH5017 was lost over the Sahara desert.

There's a big search in progress for the missing plane, with the area being relentlessly combed from above by many search planes. The positive thing is that if AH5017 came down in the Sahara you'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to find it.

Contact with the plane was lost while it was over northern Mali, which is currently considered a troublespot and a "high risk" flight zone.

It's a troublespot for sure, but there's no suggestion that fighters in the region have anything more than shoulder-fired weapons, so it's hard to see how they could have shot down an airliner at cruising altitude.

i think in this case weather is the likely factor. it's been bad in that region for the past 24 hours.

(24-07-2014 14:38 )Billy_Nomates Wrote:  Air travel is, allegedly, the safest mode of modern transportation - but with these recent disastrous events we must start doubting that notion.

How safe is air travel?

In 2013 more than 3 billion people flew on 36.4 million flights and there were 81 accidents (5 year average 86).
Of these accidents there were 16 fatal accidents (5 year average 19) with 210 fatalities (5 year average 517).
Based on last year's figures there is statistically a 1 in 450,000 chance of a flight being involved in an accident.

The wreckage of the missing plane has been found in Mali, concentrated in a small area. It's been clearly identified as AH5017 despite the disintegration of the plane, which is believed to have broken apart when it hit the ground.