PARIS — French officials say that the wreckage of an Air Algeria plane which crashed with 116 people aboard has been found in Mali.

A message posted Friday on the website of President Francois Hollande said the wreckage had been clearly identified despite the disintegration of the aircraft, and that a French military unit was being sent to secure the site.

The MD-83 aircraft disappeared from radar less than an hour after it took off early Thursday from Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou for Algiers.