Paris, France:
French officials say a military unit has been sent to secure the site in Mali where an Air Algeria plane crashed with 116 people aboard.
A message posted Friday on the website of President Francois Hollande said the wreckage had been clearly identified despite the disintegration of the aircraft.
The MD-83 aircraft, owned by Spanish company Swiftair and leased by Algeria's flagship carrier, disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso's capital of Ouagadougou for Algiers.
Earlier, officials in Burkina Faso said human remains and the burnt wreckage had been found about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the border of Burkina Faso near the Malian village of Boulikessi.
"We sent men, with the agreement of the Mali government, to the site, and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area," said Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.