Air Algerie flight AH1020 to Marseille: What Happened?

A stock photo of an Air Algerie plane. (Getty)

Air Algerie flight AH1020 has landed safely after initial news reports said that it had disappeared from radar.

Algerian media reported the good news, claiming that the plane had “technical damage.” Ennahar TV quoted the airline CEO as saying, “The pilot decided to turn back after finding a failure.”

Some who track radar online had said it might have been a “coverage” issue – not a missing plane – because radar is spotty in that flight corridor. However, it turns out that, instead of continuing on its flight path to France, the plane turned back to Algeria, where it had come from, Ennahar TV said.

Initial reports had said the plane was on its way to Marseille, France when it “disappeared without a trace,” said The Star.

The Star now says the plane “has landed safely in Algiers,” and that “the flight radar showed the jet turn around and head back towards the point where it took off.”

The Mirror says the plane had 123 seats, but it’s not known how many were on board.

RT said the plane is a Boeing 737-600 and initially reported that it disappeared at 7,000 feet while descending. There were also early reports that the plane might have had a technical issue.

France has had heightened terrorism concerns since Mohamed Bouhlel rammed a truck into a crowd at a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, a Catholic priest was murdered at Mass in Rouen, and terrorists attacked a nightclub and other locales in 2015.

There have also been a series of airplane tragedies recently, compounding fears; the May crash of an EgyptAir plane traveling from Paris to Cairo; a Russian plane that was brought down by a bomb in 2015, and the mystery over the missing Malaysian jetliner Flight 370.