(VOVworld) - Algeria's national airline, Air Algerie, says it has lost contact with one of its planes flying from Burkina Faso to Algiers across the Sahara. Contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou, the airline said.

Flight AH 5017 with 110 passengers and six crew on board, lost contact not far from the Algerian border, 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. Air Algerie has launched an emergency operation to search for the pane.