We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again.

The transport aircraft plummeted to the ground at around 8am local time from Boufarik Airport.

Dramatic footage broadcast on Algerian TV shortly after the crash showed black smoke billowing wreckage of the transport plane in the middle of an agricultural field.

Defence officials have confirmed 257 people were killed in the crash, the majority of them military personnel.

Emergency services rushed to the scene, with 130 members of the civil protection unit and more than a dozen ambulances in attendance.