The Latest: witness tells of series of noises before crash
The Latest: Witness tells of series of long noises before passenger plane crashed in the Alps
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.
Investigators looking into the cause of the French Alps Airbus plane disaster may well be able to rule out bad weather.
Conditions in the region of the crash were "nothing out of the ordinary," officials say.
But the experienced French air crash investigation branch, the BEA (Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses) will no doubt take everything into consideration in their inquiry.
Dr. Rob Thompson, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, said: "The weather conditions in the area of southern France where the crash is reported to have occurred look like nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year.
"At around 10 a.m. temperatures at the inland Le Luc - Le Cannet Airport, which is roughly between Marseille and Nice, was 15-16C (59-61F), with partial cloud cover. Wind speeds on the ground showed breezy conditions, although this does not indicate the conditions higher up in the atmosphere."
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Chris Parsonsedited by Dylan Stableford
UK Prime Minister PM: Today's plane crash in the Alps is heartbreaking news. The UK will do everything it can to support the French emergency services.French prime minister Manuel Valls said a helicopter had managed to land near the crash site. Gilbert Sauvan, an official with the local council, told Les Echos newspaper: "The plane is disintegrated. The largest debris is the size of a car."
A spokeswoman for the northwestern German town of Haltern am See said on Tuesday that there was reason to believe that 16 school children and two teachers from the town were on the Germanwings airplane that crashed. "There is a strong suspicion" that the students and teachers were on the doomed airplane, said the spokeswoman from the town in North Rhine-Westphalia state. "We don't have any official confirmation yet." It has been reported that the children were from the Joseph König Gymnasium School and had visited Spain on an exchange program.
Full csv file with positions and altitude of flight #4U9525flightradar24.com/GWI18G_2015032…
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