Europe:Alps plane crash - What we know?
Germanwings plane 4U 9525 crashes in French Alps - no survivors
25 March 2015
A German A320 Airbus carrying 150 people has crashed in the Alps in southern France, killing everyone on board.
The Germanwings flight was travelling non-stop from Barcelona in Spain to Duesseldorf in Germany. The cause of the crash is not yet known, however, the first "black box" flight recorder has been found at the crash site.
What happened?
Weather at the time of the crash was described as calm, but it deteriorated in the hours after the crash and there are forecasts of snow on Wednesday (25 March).
Transport Correspondent Richard Westcott says it seems most likely mechanical failure was behind the crash.
The "black box" flight recorder, which was discovered at the crash site and contains details of the flight, will be passed to investigators in the hope that it will provide answers about the cause.
Every plane carries two flight recorders, one which records voices in the cockpit and the other records flight data. It is not yet clear which recorder has been found.
A local council official, Gilbert Sauvan, said the debris was spread over an area about 100-200m (110-220 yards) across and that everything was "pulverized". The largest pieces of debris are said to be the size of a small car.
A number of police and civil security helicopters have been deployed to the area and about 300 police, and a similar number of firefighters from surrounding regions, have been sent to assist local crews.
Lighting and other specialist salvage equipment is being flown to the site to allow operations to continue through the night.
A temporary mortuary has been set up in the sports hall of the nearby town of Seyne-les-Alpes, from where many of the rescue teams have also been despatched.
The aircraft
The captain is said to have been very experienced and had worked for Germanwings for 10 years.
Reports from Flightradar24, which tracks air traffic around the world, said the Airbus initially climbed to 38,000ft, its cruising height, before starting to descend rapidly.
Contact was lost when the plane reached about 6,800ft.
Flightradar24 said the airbus was descending at a rate of about 3-4,000ft per minute, which, it said, was standard for an airport approach.
The plane's descent lasted about eight minutes before contact was lost.
The German authorities say they have no clear indication yet why the plane began to descend.
Who was on on board?
Spain is a popular holiday destination for German holidaymakers and initial reports suggest there were 67 German nationals on board.
The German Bild newspaper said they included a school foreign exchange party, including 16 students and two teachers.
Spain's deputy prime minister said 45 of the passengers were thought to be Spanish.
There were also reported to be some passengers from Turkey.
The French transport minister, Alain Vidalies, said there were no survivors. It does not appear that anyone was hurt on the ground.
French President Francois Hollande has described the loss of life as a tragedy.
Aviation safety
Last year was the safest aviation year on record.According to safety analysts Ascend, there was one fatal accident per 2.38 million flights in 2014, compared with every 1.91 million flights the year before.
Although these figures did not include the loss of the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, where 298 people died, which was counted as a war loss, rather than an accident.
Germanwings plane 4U 9525 crashes in French Alps - no survivors
A Germanwings plane carrying 150 people has crashed in the French Alps on its way from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.The Airbus A320 - flight 4U 9525 - went down between Digne and Barcelonnette. There are no survivors, officials say.The "black box" flight recorder has been found, France's interior minister says. The cause of the crash is not known and the plane sent no distress signal during an eight-minute descent.
Among the passengers were 16 German pupils returning from an exchange trip.
Germanwings, a low-cost airline owned by Germany's main carrier Lufthansa, has an excellent safety record. French, Spanish and German leaders have expressed shock.
A recovery team reached the site, in a remote mountain ravine, earlier on Tuesday. Their work was called off in the evening and will resume at first light on Wednesday, the French interior ministry said.
Bruce Robin, a prosecutor from Marseille, told the Reuters news agency that he had seen the wreckage of the aircraft from a helicopter.
"The body of the plane is in a state of destruction, there is not one intact piece of wing or fuselage," he said.
Key points
- Weather reportedly good when A320 Airbus came down
- Plane descended rapidly but sent out no distress signal
- White House says no suspicion of terrorism
Officials believe 67 of those aboard the plane were German citizens. Forty-five of the passengers had Spanish names, Spain's deputy prime minister said.
The passengers included a German school class on its way back from an exchange trip as well as two opera singers, Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak.
Ms Radner was travelling with her husband and baby.
The flight was also carrying citizens of Australia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it was "sadly likely" that some British nationals were on board.
"At first we thought it was on the ski slopes, an avalanche, but it wasn't the same noise," she said.
Analysis:
We know the aircraft went from a normal cruising height of 38,000 feet to crashing in the mountains in just eight minutes. One pilot told me that is twice the normal descent rate, but he also said that the aircraft is capable of coming down even more quickly and still being okay.In an emergency, the pilots' first priority is to fly the plane, but as soon as they have some control they are trained to make an emergency call. That didn't appear to happen in this case, which suggests the pilots were coping with something so catastrophic they never had time to radio in a mayday, or turn to find the nearest runway.
It's still too early to know anything for certain, but that might point to both engines failing, a fuel problem or something critical breaking off the aircraft.
the plane began descending one minute after it reached its cruising height and continued to lose altitude for eight minutes, Germanwings managing director Thomas Winkelmann told reporters.
He said the aircraft lost contact with French air traffic controllers at 10:53 at an altitude of about 6,000 feet.
The plane did not send out a distress signal, officials said. Earlier reports of a distress call, quoting the French interior ministry, referred to a message from controllers on the ground.
The White House has said there is no evidence so far of a terror attack. A Lufthansa official said they were assuming for the time being that the crash had been caused by an accident.
The Airbus A320 is a single-aisle passenger jet popular for short- and medium-haul flights.
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