Germanwings Flight 4U9525 Crashes in France [updates]

Sixteen teenagers and two teachers from the German city of Haltern were among the passengers aboard flight 4U9525 believes newspaper Bild, citing a spokesman from the city. The school did not make any comments as Sky reports.

 

Germanwings press conference

Germanwings flight 4U9525, an Airbus A320, was flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. The aircraft reached its cruising altitude of 38,000ft about 44 minutes after takeoff, at 10.45am. Approximately 1-2 minutes later, it began an unexplained descent, which lasted for eight minutes. Contact with the aircraft was lost at 10.53 when the plane had an altitude of 6,000ft.

Germanwings is unsure whether a distress call was made as the spokesman for the German carrier said he had conflicting information from air traffic controllers. The uncertainty is sustained by French aviation sources, which also have contradictory information.

Aboard the flight were 144 passengers and six crew members. A number of 67 German nationals are believed to have been on board the crashed Germanwings flight.

The Airbus A320 was 24 years old and it underwent a routine check by Lufthansa technicians just yesterday, in Düsseldorf. The last major inspection of the aircraft was in summer 2013.

The captain of flight 4U9525 had more than 10 years of flying experience with Lufthansa and Germanwings. He had recorded more than 6,000 hours of flying time.

Germanwings also formed a team to help with the investigation.

 

Eric Leister, an AccuWeather.com meteorologist, has cautioned that conditions in the region where authorities are searching for the plane might get worse in the next few hours. He said: "The weather will deteriorate near the crash site in the next 12 hours. A storm system will move into the region and high-elevation snow and rain are expected."