Wreckage of missing Air Algerie flight AH5017 found in Mali

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 crashed as it battled through heavy rainstorms en route to Algiers



Search teams last night found the wreckage of a passenger jet which crashed in the Sahara desert with 116 people on board.

Debris from the Air Algerie plane was spotted in a remote area of Mali, close to the border with Algeria.

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita revealed the news.

There were no reports of survivors.

The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 crashed as it battled through heavy rainstorms sweeping across the Sahara early yesterday heading for Algiers.

Flight AH5017 disappeared about 50 minutes after it took off from the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou.

Radar contact was lost shortly after the pilot was asked to change course in poor visibility to avoid the risk of a collision with another aircraft.

Algeria's Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said "every possibility" was being explored, including terrorism.

French troops are in Mali fighting al-Qaeda's Islamist militants.

But a senior official said it was unlikely rebels had the capacity to shoot down a plane.

There were 50 French passengers on the flight.

Foreign minister Laurent Fabius described the incident as a tragedy which had "touched the whole of France".

Among others on the passenger list were 24 from Burkina Faso, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans and six Spanish crew.

The flight was operated by Spanish airline Swiftair for Air Algerie.

It was feared Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and niece of former communist leader Fidel, was on the plane.

But later the 51-year-old mother of three said in Havana: "I'm alive and kicking."

Until 2008, the aircraft was used as a private jet by Real Madrid to fly its players to European away games.

The MD-83 is part of a series of long-range jets built by McDonnell Douglas since the early 1980s.