Reported 47 dead, 11 injured.

Some sort of emergency landing that went wrong from what I read. Mechanical at a guess and not terrorist related.

I hate how all the news is now "omg terrorists could be waiting at any airport with shoulder launched missiles " like it is some sudden new threat. I vaguely recall some group tried it once and it turned out to be harder to do than just point it at a plane and fire.

The first time I heard of the concern was in the mid 70's, when I was far too young to worry about such things (I remember wondering where in America "Beirut" was after seeing TV coverage of tanks in the street in front of skyscrapers), and there was concern raised about the possibility of a SAM being launched from Windsor Great Park at a plane departing from LHR. I suspect that concerns were ahead of technology by a decade. .... To your last point, by the mid 80's the Mujahideen in Afghanistan were proving that a shoulder launched stinger missiles could be used to bring Russian helicopters down very easily.

Apparently it happens quite a lot but not many are successful. Read an interesting report this morning note it is dated 2003.

"Plane Threat" by Soyoung Ho

An Air Algerie MD-83 has reportedly gone down in Burkina Faso.

It's not yet been found on the ground.

I'm surprised that doesn't happen with African airlines more often, they don't put the money into maintenance, and their Mad Dogs are approaching 40 years old in most cases.

Normally I'd agree but the BBC report said Swissair charter.

Of course the media will spin this into omg planes falling out of the sky daily what is wrong?"

Statistics that all.

"Swiftair", a Spanish outfit.

Insert joke about the Spanish being even worse.

It was an European airline who owned the aircraft and operated the flight.