Investigations Resume over Air Algerie Crash, Lebanese Delegation Head to Mali

Experts from France's Bureau of Investigations and Analyses agency (BEA) that probes air accidents arrived at the site late Saturday and began their delicate task. "They will try to glean the maximum information," BEA chief Remi Jouty said in Paris.
  
Their work will take a "few days", he said, adding that they will examine the plane's data flight recorders and any other information including the prevailing weather conditions at the time. "It is too early to make any conjecture" about the reason for the crash, he said.
  
French President Francois Hollande, who met families of some of the victims in Paris on Saturday, said the bodies of all 118 victims would be repatriated to France and a memorial would be erected at the site.
  
No one survived the impact of Thursday's tragedy and entire families were wiped out. France bore the brunt with 54 of its nationals being killed in the crash of the McDonnell Douglas 83, which had taken off from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso bound for Algiers. Travellers from Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Algeria, Spain, Canada, Germany and Luxembourg also died in the crash, increasingly being blamed on bad weather that forced the pilots to change course.
  
Hollande said flags would fly at half-mast from government buildings for three days from Monday to mourn the victims.
  
In Burkina Faso, President Blaise Compaore met the families of the victims of diverse nationalities and opened an investigation into the tragedy. Lebanese national Pierre Hage sought Compaore's help so that he could recover the "remains of my relatives either wholly or in part."
 
An official Lebanese delegation headed on Sunday to Paris en rout to Mali to follow up the probe into the plane and to carry out the necessary procedures to identify the bodies of the Lebanese victims.
 
Haitham Jomaa,director general of the emigrants dept. at Lebanon's foreign ministry, chaired a delegation to follow up the probe into the crash of the McDonnell Douglas 83.
 
The delegation will reportedly discuss with Malian officials the necessary arrangement to repatriate the bodies of the Lebanese victims to Beirut as soon as possible. It will also follow up the probe with French experts tasked with the investigations.