Barcelona – Duesseldorf on Lufthansa-owned Germanwings was a deadly choice for 150 passengers today.
Going to the Germanwings website this is coming up:
We must confirm to our deepest regret that Germanwings flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf has suffered an accident over the French Alps. The flight was being operated with an Airbus A320 aircraft, and was carrying 144 passengers and six crew members. Lufthansa and Germanwings have established a telephone hotline. The toll-free 0800 11 33 55 77 number is available to all the families of the passengers involved for care and assistance. Everyone at Germanwings and Lufthansa is deeply shocked and saddened by these events. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the passengers and crew members.
A Germanwings Airbus 320 plane crashed this morning in Southern France around 11:20 a.m. local time while traveling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf in the French Alps The latest count from Germanwings put 150 people on board — 144 passengers and 6 crew.
Germanwings is fully owned by German Lufthansa. Germanwings and also Lufthansa had major issues with ongoing strikes recently. Germanwings is operating most of Lufthansa’s local routes, flight crew is getting paid less compared to Lufthansa.
Flight 4U9525 plane has been found scattered around the villages of Verdaches, Auzet, Le Vernet, and Seyne-les-Alpes. French President Francois Hollande said the crash happened “in a zone that is particularly difficult = to access.”
The black box was found.
The plane is one of the oldest A320s in operation. It entered service for the German airline in 1991.
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 6,000ft, at 10:53.
Earlier, reports suggested the plane had issued a distress signal at 10:47 local time (09:47 GMT) – but German authorities later confirmed the mayday had been sounded by air traffic control when they lost contact with the plane.
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.
Spain is a popular holiday destination for German tourists and Barcelona is the Gateway for many of the resorts German travelers like. Initial reports say 67 Germans and 45 Spanish passengers and one Dutch citizen were onboard the aircraft.
