A couple, their two children, and a mother of three — all from Quebec — were among five Canadians killed after an Air Algérie flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers crashed in West Africa early Thursday.

The wreckage of jet, carring 110 passengers and six crew, was found late Thursday in a semi-desert area in Mali. French President Francois Hollande said Friday, “There are, alas, no survivors.”

The plane, an MD-83, took off at 1:17 a.m. Thursday from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, on a flight to Algeria. Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane less than an hour later.

Fierce thunderstorms were pounding the Sahara region where Flight 5017 would have flown, and the storms probably played a role in bringing the plane down, according to Gen. Gilbert Diendéré, chief of the general staff.

One of the Canadian victims, 35-year-old Isabelle Prévost of Sherbrooke, Que., was a devoted mother to her three children ages five, seven and eight, said her father, Jean-Pierre Prévost.

“It’s not going well. It’s really not a great thing to hear this news. She was coming back from Burkina Faso,” he told La Presse. “She spent 10 days there for the 50th wedding anniversary of the parents-in-law of one of her friends.”

“We just lost our daughter, and her husband just lost his wife, and her three kids lost their mom. This is how we feel.”

Winmalo Somda, his wife Angélique and their children, Nathanael and Arielle, left for Burkina Faso July 14. They were accompanied by Prévost and Somda’s brother, Wilfred, who is not a permanent resident of Canada.

The Somda brothers had spent two years preparing for their parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration in Burkina Faso. Only Wilfred’s wife, who is pregnant, was unable to join them and stayed in Canada.

“These are friends, brothers because they are part of my community. We’re in shock. We’re organizing ourselves to be able to take care of her (Wilfred Somda’s wife).” family friend Mamadou Sawadogo said yesterday.

In Gatineau, Que., an employee at Hôpital de Buckingham lost his wife and his two children. Mamadou Zoungrana had not seen his family in years but the four were planning to reunite in Quebec.

“Last night we were talking. When I saw the news, it corresponded exactly with their plane,” he said.

Zoungrana is almost convinced he’s lost his family, but he still holds on to a little bit of hope.

“I have hope because up to now I can’t make myself believe they died, that all my family is gone like that. I can’t get it in my head that my family, the moment they are supposed to come join me, their plane crashed.”

The Prévost family said they have spoken with Canadian authorities on three occasions since air traffic controllers lost track of the plane over northern Mali. The information they’re getting, her father said, is the same as the news on television.

“I feel like we’ve a good amount of support (from the Department of Foreign Affairs). We could probably get more, but we’re getting, in my opinion, what they can give,” he said. The federal government has yet to confirm the number of Canadian passengers.

Lynne Yelich, Canada’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said the government is aware of the reports of Canadians on board and that they are seeking more information, but that consular officials are ready to provide assistance.

Two French fighter jets scoured the rugged north of Mali for the plane for most of Thursday before the wreckage was located in early evening about 50 kilometres from the border of Burkina Faso near the village of Boulikessi in Mail, said Diendéré.

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Diendéré is a close aide to President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to co-ordinate research for the plane.

Radar images show the plane deviated from its route, Diendéré said. The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali have been the scene of unrest by both Tuareg separatists and Islamist radicals.

He said searchers at the crash site found human remains and burned and scattered plane wreckage.

More than 50 French passengers were on board the plane along with 27 Burkina Faso nationals as well as citizens of a dozen other countries. The flight crew was Spanish.

Before vanishing, the pilots sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain in the area, said Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo.

The Air Algérie plane crash comes after a spate of aviation disasters. Fliers around the globe have been on edge ever since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March on its way to Beijing. Searchers have yet to find a single piece of wreckage from the jet with 239 people on board.

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine. A Canadian was among the almost 300 who perished in that disaster. The back-to-back disasters involving Boeing 777s flown by the same airline were too much of a coincidence for many fliers.

With files from The Associated Press

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