An Algerian plane crashed Thursday, killing 103 passengers and crew near Tamanrasset, deep in the Sahara Desert, airport authorities said. Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni told state radio that an engine of the Air Algerie plane caught fire on takeoff, but said further investigations were needed to determine the precise cause of the accident.

It was the worst air accident in Algeria since the North African country gained independence from France 41 years ago.
Authorities at Algiers and Tamanrasset airports said one passenger survived the accident but was seriously wounded.

At Algiers airport, families and friends were anxiously awaiting for information on the fate of their loved ones.

Officials said seven French passengers were among the dead. One airport source earlier had put the number of dead French passengers at six.

The official news agency APS, quoting rescue workers at the scene, said the state-owned airline's Boeing 737-200 crashed shortly after takeoff from Tamanrasset in the south of the country at 9:45 a.m. EST.

It had been heading for Algiers, on the Mediterranean coast in the north, and was due to make a stop over at Ghardaia, 290 miles south of the capital.

Tamanrasset, which is about 1,200 miles from Algiers, is in the middle of the Sahara.

The area, noted for its prehistoric cave paintings, attracts limited tourism, mainly from France and Germany, despite a civil war that has racked Algeria for the past decade.

APS said the government had set up a crisis committee to investigate the "technical causes of the accident" -- a wording suggesting authorities ruled out a deliberate attack.

Interior Minister Zerhouni and Transport Minister Abdelmalek Sellal had flown to Tamanrasset, the agency said.

In January, an unarmed man under the influence of drugs tried to hijack an Algerian airliner during a domestic flight but was overpowered by the crew.

PHOTO CAPTION

An undated file photo taken at Berlin's Schoenefeld airport shows a similar aircraft to the Air Algerie Boeing 737-200 passenger plane, which crashed in the southern province of Tamanrasset, Algeria March 6, 2003, killing at least 97 passengers and the crew. (Re