A German plane carrying 144 passengers and six crew members to Düsseldorf from Barcelona crashed on Tuesday in southern France, the French civil aviation authority confirmed.
The wreckage of the aircraft, an Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was located by a French military helicopter near the town of Prads-Haute-Bléone, according to Eric Héraud, a spokesman in Paris for the aviation authority, the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile.
It was unclear when the pilots last communicated with air traffic controllers. About 40 minutes after takeoff, at approximately 10:40 a.m., radio contact with the aircraft was lost.
Shortly thereafter, air traffic controllers sent out an alert, as the plane descended rapidly from a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet while flying over the town of Barcelonnette in the Alpes de Haute-Provence region, French aviation authorities said.
President François Hollande of France said many of the victims were German, but added that he believed that there were no French passengers on board. King Felipe VI of Spain said that there were Spanish and Turkish citizens on the flight.
“The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, suggest that there might not be any survivors,” he said. He added that the authorities did not yet know the identities of the victims.
Germanwings Crash in French Alps Kills 150; Cockpit Voice Recorder Is Found
The New York Times, “Germanwings Airbus Carrying 150 Crashes in French Alps” (via inothernews)
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