France Blames Bad Weather for Air Algerie Jet Crash

French officials are blaming bad weather for the fatal crash of an Air Algerie flight over the West African state of Mali.

Flight 5017 disappeared over Mali airspace during a rainstorm Thursday just one hour after taking off from Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, en route to Algiers, Algeria. Most of the 116 passengers were French citizens.

"French soldiers who are on the ground have started the first investigations. Sadly, there are no survivors," French President Francois Hollande told reporters.

The plane, owned by the Spanish company Swiftair, crashed close to a zone of conflict between Islamist rebels and the government. The FAA had warned pilots to stay above 20,000 feet to avoid being targeted.

The pilots had asked to change paths because of bad weather.

It's the third major international aviation disaster in a week, with one passenger plane being shot out of the sky in Ukraine and a TransAsia Airways plane crashing during a storm in Taiwan.

Aviation experts say there was no pattern that suggested a huge gap in airline safety measures.

"One of the things that makes me feel better when we look at these events is that if they all were the same type event or same root cause, then you would say there's a systemic problem here, but each event is unique," Jon Beatty, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, said.