An Air Algerie flight with 116 people on board is believed to have crashed in Mali after disappearing from radar earlier today.

Travelling from Burkina Faso to Algiers, the national airline of Algeria said contact was lost about 50 minutes after take-off from Ouagadougou.

Following a search by French aircraft, the plane is now believed to have crashed in the region of Tilemsi, some 70 kilometres from Gao.

Flight AH 5017 was last seen at 01:55 GMT and should have landed at 05:10.

The plane is operated by Air Algerie and chartered from Swiftair.

Swiftair said that the aircraft was an MD83.

The Spanish airline, too, has been unable to establish contact with the plane

A representative for the Air Algerie told a news conference that according to passenger lists, some 50 French nationals were travelling on the route

Additionally, there were 24 Burkinabe, eight Lebanese, four Algerians, two from Luxembourg, one Belgian, one Swiss, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian, one Ukrainian and one Romanian.

The Algerian Ministry of Defence has not ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack, reported Al Arabiya.

French president Francois Hollande has postponed a trip to the island of La Reunion, east of Madagascar, by two hours because of the plane crash.

The plane was on route to Algiers