A BRITISH man was among those killed in the crash of an Air Algerie airliner in Mali, the Foreign Office has said.
A spokesman said: "It is with deep regret that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirms the death of a British man onboard Air Algerie flight AH 5107.
"We are providing consular support to his family at this tragic time and we ask the media respect the privacy of those grieving."
Earlier, French soldiers secured one of the black boxes from the plane that crashed in northern Mali with the loss of at least 116 lives, French president Francois Hollande said.
Terrorism has not been ruled out as a cause, although officials say the most likely cause is bad weather.
The black box was recovered from the wreckage in the Gossi region near the border with Burkina Faso and is being taken to the northern city of Gao, where a French contingent is based, Mr Hollande told reporters after a crisis meeting with top ministers.
"There are, alas, no survivors," Mr Hollande said. "I share the pain of families living through this terrible ordeal."
Nearly half of the passengers aboard the flight were French, many headed on to Europe after arriving in the Algerian capital Algiers from the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou.
Mr Hollande has said France will spare no efforts to uncover the cause of the crash - the third major plane disaster around the world within a week after incidents in Ukraine and Taiwan.
He added: "There are hypotheses, notably weather-related."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article