Germanwings Airbus A320 crashes in French Alps with no survivors

LONDON (ShareCast) - A Germanwings Airbus A320 en route to Dusseldorf from Barcelona has crashed in the French Alps near Digne on Tuesday morning. 1235: Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron paid tribute to the victims.

"The Foreign Office is working urgently to establish whether any further British nationals were among those on board," he said. "It is heart-breaking to hear about the schoolchildren, the babies, the families whose lives have been brought to an end." 1209: Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that "according to the latest information there is no hard evidence that the crash was intentionally brought about by third parties".

1200: French investigators have released pictures of the cockpit voice recorder recovered from the wreckage of Germanwings flight 4U9525. Earlier on Wednesday, Brice Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, confirmed that the second black box was still to be recovered.

Citing aviation industry experts, the Wall Street Journal added that cockpit voice recorders are designed to withstand impact of 3,400 times the force of gravity.

1152: Germanwings CEO said the plane victims included 72 German citizens, 35 Spaniards and two Americans, AP said.

1145: Lufthansa 's CEO Carsten Spohr said the crash was "inexplicable". "It is inexplicable this could happen to a plane free of technical problems and with an experienced, Lufthansa-trained pilot," he told journalists in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, French transport minister, Alain Vidalies said that if voices have been recorded by the cockpit voice recorder, the investigation would proceed "fairly quickly." "After that, if we have to analyse the sounds, that's a job that will take several weeks, but it's a job that can offer us some explanations," he told a French radio station.

1134: The number of Spanish victims has risen to 49, according to Spanish Secretary of State of Security, Francisco Martínez. He said the data was based on information received from the families of the victims.

1124: A spokesman for the French air force said that it scrambled a Mirage fighter jet to the area when the Germanwings flight lost contact, but it arrived too late to help and could not locate the site of the crash, AP reports.

1121: The latest report on the nationalities of the victims indicates there were 67 Germans among the people on board and an as yet unspecified number of Spaniards. The government said there were 45 people Spanish-sounding surnames but it was still trying to confirm the exact number. Three British and three Kazakhs citizens are thought to have been on board, along with two Japanese, two Colombians, two Australians, one Israeli, one Dutch and one Dane. The Mexican government said it was still trying to confirm whether a Mexican citizen was among the victims.

1109: Brice Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, warned the investigation into the crash of flight 4U 9525 would take weeks.

"The priority on the ground is to identify the bodies," he said.

"We owe that to the families of the victims. But it will not be done in five minutes. It is going to take a number of weeks and I think everyone should be aware that we are talking about a long time." He added that the black box was damaged and that the second flight recorder was yet to be recovered.

"We saw an aircraft that had literally been ripped apart, the bodies are in a state of destruction, there is not one intact piece of wing or fuselage," he said.

1058: According to BBC's Europe editor Katya Adler, Germanwings has offered to fly the students' family members to France but so far no-one has taken them up on the offer.

1053: Citing officials sources from each of the countries, AFP reported that victims are also feared from Colombia, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico.

1049: It has emerged that Dalkurd FF, a Swedish third division football team was meant to be on the plane, but changed their minds at the last moment and boarded a different flight instead. The club has offered condolences to the relatives of the victims via its official Twitter (Xetra: A1W6XZ - news) account.

1046: According to Sky News, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin has confirmed that French, Spanish and German authorities have formally requested information about the jet's maintenance.

1043: A Germanwings spokesperson said this morning's Barcelona to Dusseldorf flight changed route as well as flight number.

1040: Ulrich Wessel, the principal of Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium, said the school had lost "16 cheerful young people" and teachers in the crash. "This is a tragedy that makes you speechless," he said. "Our condolences and sympathy goes to the parents who have lost their beloved sons and daughters." 1021: Here's what UKUlrich Wessel, principal of Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium, told a press conference that last Tuesday the school "saw off 16 cheerful young people" and teachers on an exchange trip, similar visits having taken place for "a number of years". "This is a tragedy that makes you speechless," he said. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond had to say on the three British citizens believed to be among the victims.

" We currently believe that three British people have been killed in this tragedy, but we cannot rule out the possibility that there are further British people involved," he said.

"The level of information on the flight manifest doesn't allow us to rule out that possibility until we've completed some further checks.We are in contact with the families of those known to have been killed." 1015: The UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond added that he could "not rule out" that more British citizens were on board Germanwings flight 4U9525. Meanwhile, passengers at Dusseldorf airport, the plane's intended destination, have held a minute of silence to commemorate the victims of the crash exactly 24 hours after the accident.

1007 : UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said at least three British citizens are believed to be among the victims.

1004: According to AP, the French interior ministry spokesman Paul-Henry Brandet said reaching the area of the crash has been made harder by overnight rain and snow, which has made the rocky ravine of the crash site more slippery, 0932: Although investigations continue, several of the nationalities of the 150 victims who died in the crash have been confirmed. Most of them were Germans and Spaniards, but several other nationalities have been identified. So far there is no confirmation of British nationals having been on board the flight, though, as mentioned earlier, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond admitted that it was "sadly likely". Read more: The list of nationalities confirmed to have passed away on the Germanwings flight 0851: The actual cause of the accident remains unclear and some aviation experts have said that it could take up to a year in order to reach a reliable conclusion. The main focus is on the sudden, 8-minute drop in the plane from an altitude of 38,000ft to 6,000ft where it then disappeared from the radar. The airplane's black box has been found and, though damaged, the French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that it can be used to find information. Cazeneuve did tell RTL radio that while they are investigating all possible causes, he did not think that a terrorist attack was the most likely scenario.

0846: Investigators are focusing on the task of identifying the bodies. They are studying the creation of a path that would be approximately seven km long in order to facilitate access to the site. They also plan to set up a place for the relatives, accompanied by psychologists, to be able to identify the victims.

0824: As authorities continue to work on identifying the victims, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it was "sadly likely" that some British nationals were on board. One is thought to be Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, a 37 year-old living in Manchester who was flying with her seven-month-old son Julian after attending a family funeral in her hometown, Jaca in the Pyrenees.

0821 : Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr once again offered his condolences to the families of the victims via Twitter on Wednesday: Spohr added that the both Lufthansa and their low-cost airline Germanwings will do "everything in our power" to help and that they plan on enabling the relatives of the victims to grieve on the site "as soon as possible".

0806: On Tuesday evening a video with the first images of the plane's debris circulated in the French press: 0803: Authorities have indicated that they expect a long process in order to identify the victims. Spain has offered its help to the French authorities in order to speed up the process and have already collected DNA from the families of the victims that were present at the Pratt airport in Barcelona where the flight departed.

0745: Rescue operations have resumed on Wednesday morning with the effort focused on identifying the victims involved in the crash. . 0730: Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Germanwings crash in the French Alps. We'll keep you up-to-date with the latest developments.

---Wednesday, 25 March--- 1647: French Interior Minister says the black box from the crashed Germanwings plane in the French Alps has been found, Reuters reports.

1630: Bodo Klimpe, the mayor of Haltern in Germany said 16 Year 10 students from the Joseph-Koenig School were returning home after spending just under a week in Spain. He said that parents arrived at school "expecting the worst" when after not being able to make telephone contact. "We are getting support from all sorts of authorities and we have a number of people well trained in counselling," he added. The sympathy is overwhelming." 1626: French police has tweeted a picture showing the area in which research is currently being carried out. The map also shows the no-fly zone that has been implemented over the site in a bid to aid the operation.

1620: Airbus' president Tom Enders is about to fly over the crash site in a helicopter from Marseilles, according to reports by BBC's Chris Bockman.

1616: Passengers from four different countrieswere on board flight 4U9525. According to initial reports, almost 50% of them were Germans, 42 Spanish, two Turkish and one Belgian.

1613: Belgium's authorities have confirmed that a Belgian citizen was on board the Germanwings flight.

1607: Flight 4U9525 is the second Airbus A320 to crash in less than four months, after Air Asia flight 8501 crashed in the Java Sea in December 2014 on its way to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya.

LIVE televised feed, from France24: 1601: Pictures posted by local newspaper La Provence, indicate debris are scattered over a very vast area.

1554: The schoolchildren thought to have been on board are from Haltern am See in northern Germany, "All the signs point to them being on board the plane" when it crashed, said a spokesman for the local authorities.

1552: "There were 16 children and two teachers who had spent a week here, poor things. The children were aged about 15," Marti Pujol, mayor of the village of Llinars de Valles near Barcelona, was quoted as saying by AFP. Along with the teachers, the kids left for Barcelona airport on Tuesday morning, he said, though he could not confirm that they had boarded the flight.

1546: Debris from flight 4U9525 appear to be scattered on a vast area 1535: The White House says US officials have offered their assistance to French, German and Spanish officials. In a statement, US National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said for the time being there was no indication the crash was the result of terrorism.

1527: Here's what we know and what we do not know about the crash of flight 4U9525. 1522: Germanwings flight 4U9525 is Lufthansa's first fatal crash since 1993, when two people were killed as flight 2904 crash-landed in Warsaw.

1509: Euronews news agency reported that only one of the helicopters has landed on the exact spot of the accident, while other helicopters are having trouble reaching the area due to weather conditions 1508: According to Reuters, French police at the crash site said it would take days to recover the bodies of those on board due to difficult terrain.

1459: "The plane is disintegrated," council official Gilbert Sauvan was quoted as saying by Les Echos newspaper. "The largest debris is the size of a car".

1456: The first pictures of the crash site are beginning to emerge.

1441: AP reports that French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a helicopter has landed next to the wreckage but found no survivors.

1440: Sixteen schoolchildren and two teachers are believed to have been on the aircraft, a spokeswoman for the German town of Haltern am See has said. "We don't have any official confirmation yet," she said, but German local media that the children are from the Joseph Koenig school, adding the building has been closed and students sent home.

1434: "We heard a plane passing at a very low altitude but we didn't see it and it was strange as there's not a route that flies at that altitude there," Michel Suhubiette, a mountain guide based in Digne, was quoted as saying by French newspaper La Provence. 1430: French police and rescue teams are on the site of the crash and have confirmed that there are no survivors.

1423: Winkelmann added that the plane descended for eight minutes before crashing and that 67 Germans are believed to have been on board.

1418: Speaking at a press conference,Thomas Winkelmann, chief executive of Germanwings, said: - Contact between the plane and French air traffic controllers broke off at 10:53 (9:53 GMT) at an altitude of approx 6,000ft, before the plane crashed.

- Lufthansa ground staff conducted the last routine check and inspection of the aircraft took place on 23 March in Dusseldorf.

- The last regular inspection on the plane was carried out in summer 2013.

- The captain had over 10 years of experience with Lufthansa and Germanwings, and more than 6,000 hours of flying Airbus models.

- A list of passengers will not be released immediately, to protect the relatives of the victims.

1409: According to German's Bild newspaper, a group of schoolchildren may have been on board the flight. The students were making their way back from a foreign exchange trip.

1352 : A Germanwings official has confirmed that the aircraft's crew did not send a distress call before it crashed. This has led to theories that the plane suffered a technical fault or a mid-air collision which perhaps resulted in a loss of cabin pressure.

1350: Lufthansa has provided a toll-free number, 0800 11 33 55 77 or 900 808 890 from Spain, for all the families of the passengers involved to call for assistance.

1341: Aviation reporters say flight 4U9525 plunged at an unusually fast rate of 5,000 feet per minute before crashing.

1330: French interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet has said he expected the search and recovery operation to be "extremely long and extremely difficult'' due to the remoteness of the crash site. Crash recovery teams were using helicopters to access the high-altitude site.

1312: "There are no victims from France, although that is not totally sure", said Hollande. 1306: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to make a statement about the incident at 13:30 GMT.

1249: French president Francois Hollande said the victims of the crash were most likely from Spain, Germany and Turkey. 1246: Reports in Spain suggest that while 45 passengers had a Spanish surname, the number of Spanish nationals on the plane was 42.

1243: A hotel worker in Digne, the closest town to the suspected crash site, was quoted as saying by BBC Radio 5 live the plane was flying "very low".

1234: Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy has said in a news conference that he has already spoken with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as with the Spanish King who was in France, Catalonia's regional leader Artur Mas and his main opposition leader socialist Pedro Sánchez.

1227: Reports from Spain indicate 45 of the passengers on board were Spanish and Barcelona airport has set up a room in Terminal 2 for family members, according to officials in Catalonia.

1212: German air safety experts are on the way to the crash site, according to Reuters. 1210: According to French satellite channel BFMTV, Germanwings is due to hold a news conference at 14:00 GMT at Cologne-Bonn airport 1200 : Rescuers are now understood to be taking bodies of victims to an emergency morgue set up in a village not far from the site of the crash, according to the Daily Mirror's chief reporter Andy Lines. He added that the crash looked to have happened in the proximity of a ski slope.

1146: French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet says debris from the crash of an Airbus A320 have been located and the plane crashed at 2,000 meters altitude in the Alps, near the town of Barcelonnette, about 100 km north of Nice (Milan: NICE.MI - news) . He told BFM television that he expected "an extremely long and extremely difficult" search and rescue operation because of the area's remoteness.

1140: Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said on Twitter that the cause of the crash was still unknown. "We do not yet know what has happened to flight 4U9525," he said. "My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew on 4U9525. If our fears are confirmed, this is a dark day for Lufthansa. We hope to find survivors." 1134: Lufthansa shares were down 4.67% to €13.12, while Airbus shares were down 2.2% to €58.52.

1129 : The plane made a distress call at 09:47 GMT then disappeared off the radar at around 10:20 GMT and French president Francois Hollande has confirmed the authorities expect to find "no survivors".

He added the crash happened in "an area that was very difficult to access" and did not know whether any homes had been affected on the ground.

"Solidarity is our first sentiment at this moment," he said.

1125 : The German air traffic control has confirmed the plane has crashed, while the French transport minister said a distress call was received by air traffic control at 09:47 UCT (09:47 GMT). According to reports, search and rescue teams are heading to the crash site at Méolans-Revel in the French Alps.

Meanwhile, the altitude and speed graphs of flight 4U9525 suggest the plane entered a steep but constant descent before crashing.

1059: According to reports from AFP, flight 4U9525 lost contact when flying at an altitude of 6800 feet altitude. The flight, operated by Lufthansa-owned Germanwings was carrying 148 passengers, including six crew members. The plane was 24 years old and had been with the Lufthansa since 1991, according to online database airfleets.net