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A family of people involved in a crashed plane
arrives at the Barcelona airport in Spain, Tuesday, March 24, 2015. (AP
Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says a helicopter
has managed to land near where a passenger plane carrying 150 people crashed in
the Alps, and has found there were no survivors. The weather in the area deteriorated Tuesday
afternoon, with a chilly rain falling.
Gilbert Sauvan, of the local council, told Les Echos
newspaper, "The plane is disintegrated.The largest debris is the size of a car,"
he added.
Associated Press bulletins report:
The Germanwings Airbus 320 from Barcelona to
Duesseldorf, Germany, came down in the mountains on Tuesday morning after an
eight-minute descent from its cruising height. Officials said they are still
establishing whether there was a distress call.
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3:20 p.m. (1420 GMT, 10:20 a.m. EDT)
The boss of airline Germanwings says the plane went
into a long descent before it crashed into the French Alps, likely killing all
150 people on board.
Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann said the plane
began descending again shortly after it reached its cruising height following
takeoff from Barcelona Airport. The descent lasted eight minutes, he told
reporters in Cologne. Radar and air traffic control contact broke off at 10:53
a.m.
He said the pilot had more than 10 years' experience
working for Germanwings and its parent airline Lufthansa. Airbus said the A320
was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991.
Germanwings said the passenger manifest included two
babies. Officials believe there were 67 German nationals on board.
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French President Francois Hollande said no survivors
are likely in the Alpine crash of a passenger jet carrying 148 people. (AP
Photo/Martin Meissner)
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3:05 p.m. (1405 GMT, 10:05 a.m. EDT)
Officials at two airports are rushing to provide
help and information to relatives and friends of the passengers aboard the
crashed Germanwings flight 9525.
In Barcelona, from where the plane took off Tuesday
morning, police escorted people, some of them crying, through a terminal and
took them to a secure part of the airport. They did not speak to the media, and
one woman held a jacket over the head of a sobbing woman.
In Duesseldorf, the destination airport, family
members arriving at the airport were taken from the main terminal to a nearby
building. Airport employees partly covered the building with sheets to keep the
relatives out of the eye of the public.
A total of 150 people were on board the plane when
it crashed in the French Alps. No survivors are expected to be found.
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2:50 p.m. (1350 GMT, 9:50 a.m. EDT)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will head
to the remote mountain in the French Alps where a Germanwings passenger plane
crashed with 150 people aboard.
She says her thoughts are "with those people
who so suddenly lost their lives, among them many compatriots."
Merkel says she will travel to the region on
Wednesday, a day after her foreign and transport ministers were heading to the
crash site.
She is urging people not to speculate on the cause
of the crash until an investigation can be conducted.
No survivors are expected in the crash of the plane,
which was traveling Tuesday morning from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf,
Germany.
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2:05 p.m. (1305 GMT, 9:05 a.m. EDT)
The owner of a French Alpine camping ground says he
heard a series of loud noises in the air before a Germanwings passenger plane
carrying 150 people crashed to the ground.
Pierre Polizzi told The Associated Press the noise
began at 11:30 a.m.
"There are often fighter jets flying over, so I
thought it sounded just like that. I looked outside but I couldn't see any
fighter planes."
"The noise I heard was long - like 8 seconds -
as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane speed. There was
another long noise about 30 seconds later."
No survivors are expected in the crash of the plane
that was traveling from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, Germany.
Polizzi said it would be difficult to get to the
site of the crash. "The mountain is snowy and very hostile."
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1:45 p.m. . (1245 GMT, 8:45 EDT)
Spanish King Felipe has canceled his state visit to
France following the crash of a plane in the southern French Alps.
The plane was flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf
in Germany, and Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told
reporters in Seville that there were 45 people aboard the plane with Spanish
last names but that authorities have not confirmed how many of them were
Spanish.
Felipe met with French President Francois Hollande
on Tuesday morning before ending his visit.
Airline Germanwings says there were 150 people on
board the Airbus 320. Hollande has said no survivors are expected to be found.
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1:40 p.m. (1240 GMT, 8:40 a.m. EDT)
Airline Germanwings says there were 144 passengers
and six crew aboard a plane that crashed in the French Alps.
Manager Oliver Wagner did not say whether there were
any survivors and added it was not currently possible to give more information
on how the crash occurred. "I promise that we will do everything to clear
up the events thoroughly," he said. "We are endlessly sorry for what
has happened."
Other officials have given slightly differing
figures for the number on board.
The Airbus 320 crashed Tuesday morning during a
flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, Germany. French President Francois
Hollande has said no survivors are expected.
The Germanwings logo, normally maroon and yellow,
was blacked out on its Twitter feed.
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1:25 p.m. (1225 GMT, 8:25 a.m. EDT)
The Airbus 320 plane that went down in the French
Alps is a workhorse of modern aviation. Similar to the Boeing 737, the
single-aisle, twin-engine jet is used to connect cities that are between one
and five hours apart. Worldwide, 3,606 A320s are in operation, according to
Airbus, which also makes the smaller but near-identical A318 and A319 and the
stretched A321. An additional 2,486 of those jets are flying.
The Germanwings A320 crashed Tuesday crashed in the
south of the Alps while flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf in Germany. No
survivors are expected.
The A320 family has a good safety record, with just
0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, according to a Boeing safety
analysis.
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1:10 p.m. (1210 GMT, 8:10 a.m. EDT)
The CEO of Lufthansa, the parent company of
Germanwings, says he doesn't yet have any information about what happened to
its flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf that French officials say has crashed
in the Alps.
"My deepest sympathy is with all the relatives
and friends of our passengers and crew on 4U 9525," Carsten Spohr was
cited in a tweet by Lufthansa as saying. "If our fears are confirmed, this
is a dark day for Lufthansa. We hope to find survivors."
Antonio San Jose, spokesman for Spanish airport
authority AENA, told the Onda Cero radio station that authorities do not yet
know how many Spaniards were on the jet but that the authority's best
information is that 147 people were aboard the plane.
"It would be a miracle if there were survivors
but hopefully there will be. We do not know the causes, simply that it lost
contact," San Jose said.
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1 p.m. (1200 GMT, 8 a.m. EDT)
French President Francois Hollande has spoken
briefly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to express solidarity following
the crash of a Germanwings plane in southern France.
The German ambassador is leaving imminently with
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve for the area of the crash.
The Airbus A320 crashed in the south of the Alps
while flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf in Germany. Holland says no
survivors are expected.
Spanish King Felipe and his wife are in France on a
previously scheduled visit and are currently meeting Hollande.
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12:40 p.m. (1140 GMT, 7:40 a.m. EDT)
French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry
Brandet says debris from the crash of an Airbus A320 has been located and the
plane crashed at 2,000 meters altitude in the Alps.
Brandet told BFM television that he expected
"an extremely long and extremely difficult" search and rescue
operation because of the area's remoteness.
The airplane sent out a distress signal at 10:45
a.m. Tuesday, Brandet said.
He said the passenger manifest is being verified.
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12:30 p.m. (1130 GMT, 7:30 a.m. EDT)
French President Francois Hollande says no survivors
are likely in the Alpine crash of a passenger jet carrying 148 people.
The Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed Tuesday in the
French Alps region as it traveled from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, French
officials said. Eric Ciotti, the head of the regional council, said
search-and-rescue teams were headed to the crash site at Meolans-Revels.
In a live briefing Tuesday, Hollande said the area
of the crash was remote and it was not clear whether anyone on the ground had
been hurt. Hollande said it was probable that a number of the victims are
German.
"It's a tragedy on our soil," he said,
adding he would be speaking shortly with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The French newspaper La Provence, citing aviation
officials, said the Airbus plane carried at least 142 passengers, two pilots
and four flight attendants.
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