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 Investigators at the scene of the crash in northern Mali concluded
the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft broke apart when it smashed
into the ground early on Thursday morning, the officials said,
suggesting this meant it was unlikely to have been the victim of an
attack.
"French soldiers who are on the ground have started the first
investigations," French President Francois Hollande told reporters.
"Sadly, there are no survivors."
The death toll, initially announced as 116, was revised up to 118
after a final passenger manifest was issued. An earlier count of 51
French nationals among the dead was also raised to 54 by the French
Foreign Ministry to include those with dual nationality.
French, Malian and Dutch soldiers from a U.N. peacekeeping force
(MINUSMA) secured the crash site, which lies about 80 km (50 miles)
south of the northern Malian town of Gossi, near the Burkina Faso
border.
 Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore visited the remote site on
Friday to express his condolences. Photos on his official Facebook
page showed him walking solemnly past scraps of clothing and gnarled
sheets of metal. France sent troops to Mali last year to halt an al Qaeda-backed
insurgency and has about 1,600 soldiers based in Mali, mostly in the
northern city of Gao. French officials said there were no signs of
insurgent activity in the area of the crash.
Malian authorities said they were opening an international inquiry
into flight AH5017, which crashed less than an hour after it left
the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou en route for Algiers. Aviation
authorities lost contact with the flight at around 0155 GMT on
Thursday, shortly after the pilot requested to change course due to
a storm.
Hollande said one of the black box flight recorders had been
recovered and would be analyzed.
"The plane's debris is concentrated in a small area but it is too
early to draw conclusions," he said. "There are theories, especially
the weather, but I'm not excluding any theory."
SCATTERED DEBRIS
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the crash site covered
an area of about 300 meters by 300 meters and was an arduous
six-hour drive from Gossi, making it difficult for forensic teams to
reach it. International police agency Interpol said it was deploying
a team to help identify the victims, who came from 15 different
countries. Remains recovered at the site would first be taken to Gao
before being repatriated "as quickly as possible", Fabius said.
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According to regional air safety body ASECNA, the area was "the
scene of storm systems potentially dangerous for a plane". It also
said that it had forecast the bad weather and that the information
was available to all aircraft in the affected area. Another plane
crash is likely to add to nerves over flying a week after a Malaysia
Airlines plane was downed over Ukraine, and after a TransAsia
Airways plane crashed off Taiwan during a thunderstorm on Wednesday.
Television footage issued by Burkinabe officials showed hundreds of
small pieces of debris scattered across flat scrubland among pools
of muddy water, suggesting a heavy storm.
"We're not even sure that we can piece together the bodies they have
been so badly destroyed," Burkina Faso Prime Minister Luc Adolphe
Tiao told a news conference in Ouagadougou.
Alidou Ouedraogo, whose daughter was among the 27 citizens of
Burkina Faso killed in the crash, said: "They have to do everything
to reassemble the bodies and bring them home so that we can mourn
properly." A local official in the town of Gossi told Reuters on
Thursday that local herders, who said they saw the plane crash, told
him it was in flames before it hit the ground.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the plane was
destroyed only on impact and said poor weather was the likeliest
cause.
Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said the strong smell of
aircraft fuel and the small radius of the crash site suggested the
cause of the crash was linked to weather, a technical problem or an
accumulation of both.
"We exclude - and have done so from the start - any ground strike,"
Cuvillier told France 2 television.
Burkina Faso authorities said the passenger list also included
Burkinabes, Lebanese, Algerians, Canadians, Germans, Luxembourgers,
a Cameroonian, a Belgian, an Egyptian, a Ukrainian, a Swiss, a
Nigerian and a Malian. Plane owner Swiftair said the six crew were
Spanish.
(Additional reporting by Mark John and John Irish in Paris, Joe
Bavier in Abidjan, Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou, Emma Farge in
Dakar and Paul Day in Madrid; Writing by John Irish and Daniel
Flynn; Editing by Alison Williams and G Crosse)
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