An Airbus operated by Lufthansa’s German wings budget airline crashed in a remote area of southern France early today and all 148 on board were feared dead.
The local La Provence newspaper said the Airbus A320 was carrying 142 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew, citing aviation officials.
A civil aviation official said, 148 people were onboard, including six crew members.
The official said there had been “a loss of radar of Germanwings flight GWI18G,” which is thought to have been carrying 142 passengers, two pilots and four stewards.
A spokesperson for the DGAC aviation authority said the airplane crashed near the town of Barcelonnette about 100 km north of the French Riviera city of Nice.
Lufthansa’s Germanwings unit said it was as yet unable to verify reports of the crash.
The crashed A320 is 24 years old and has been with the parent Lufthansa group since 1991, according to online database airfleets.net.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the causes of the crash were not yet known.
“We obviously fear that the 142 to 150 passengers and crew died today, given the conditions of this crash.” he stated.
Valls said he had activated the ministerial crisis cell to help coordinate the aftermath of the crash.
He added that he had sent Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the site of the incident.
French President Francois Hollande said he believed none of the 148 people on board the Germanwings plane that crashed on Tuesday had survived.
“There were 148 people on board,” Hollande said.“The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors.”
He said there was likely to be a significant number of German victims.
The airbus spokesperson said German wings is trying to assess the situation after reports of plane crash in France.
Missing German wings plane took off from Barcelona airport at 0855 GMT:
The Airbus plane had taken off from Barcelona airport at 0855 GMT, a spokesperson for Spain’s airport operator Aena said.
The spokeswoman declined to give any additional detail on the plane or who was on board.
