This TV grab on July 25, 2014 from France 2 television channel shows the crash site of the Air Algerie Flight AH5017 in Mali. French President Francois Hollande and his Malian counterpart Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Friday pledged to cement cooperation to identify the cause of the fatal crash of Air Algerie plane in eastern Mali that killed all the 118 passengers on board. (Xinhua/FRANCE 2)
PARIS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- French President Francois Hollande and his Malian counterpart Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Friday pledged to cement cooperation to identify the cause of the fatal crash of Air Algerie plane in eastern Mali that killed all the 118 passengers on board.
At phone talks, both leaders "agreed to have close cooperation to establish the truth about the flight AH5017 tragedy, facilitating the investigation and ensure the best conditions for the repatriation of the victims' bodies."
After heading a crisis meeting, Hollande announced all the passengers including 51 French nationals on board were killed in the aircraft crash, adding one black box recorder was found in the wreckage.
The debris of the Spanish MD-83 aircraft was found in Gossi, north Mali and near the border with Burkina Faso.
"The plane's wreckage is concentrated in a small area, but it is too early to draw conclusions. There are theories, especially the weather, but I'm not excluding any theory," said the French president.
Vowing full mobilization to determine the reasons of the crash, Hollande also said one of the aircraft's two black boxes has been found in the site and was transferred to Gao to be analyzed.
According to the defense ministry, 100 French soldiers and 30 vehicles already deployed in the region arrived early on Friday morning to secure the crash site "to start the first investigation."
The AH5017 flight disappeared from the radar screen 50 minutes after it took off from Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, en route to Algiers on Thursday.
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