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French Alps plane crash: Germanwings crew of Airbus A320 passenger jet sent distress signal 46 minutes after take-off French Alps plane crash: Germanwings crew of Airbus A320 flight 4U 9525 passenger jet sent distress signal 46 minutes after take-off
(35 minutes later)
The crew aboard the Germanwings flight that came down in the French Alps on Tuesday sent out a distress signal prior to the crash, officials said. The pilot of a Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf sent out a distress signal minutes before crashing into a 9,000ft mountain in the French Alps today.
The Airbus A320 carrying 142 passengers and six crew was en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it crashed near the small  town of Barcelonnette, 100 miles north of Nice. All 142 passengers and six crew aboard the German Airbus A320 are believed to have died in the crash about 100 miles north of Nice.
The French civil aviation authority said the crew had sent a distress signal at 10.47 am – 46 minutes after takeoff from Barcelona, and that it vanished from radar screens altogether about 80 minutes after take-off. Flight 4U 9525 vanished from radar screens at about 10.47 am local time, 46 minutes after take-off from Barcelona. French officials said that debris had been found on the 2,961m-high Estrop massif near the small  town of Barcelonnette in the Alpes-de-Hautes-Provence.
The French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that they feared that all those on board had died. “Our first though is for the victims of this catastrophe,” Mr Valls said. French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that they feared that all those on board had died. “Our first thought is for the victims of this catastrophe,” Mr Valls said.
Officials said a gendarmerie helicopter had located the crash scene in high mountains, and that the first items of debris had been found. This was the first crash by a civil airliner in France since the Concorde crash near Paris in 2000, most of whose victims were German tourists.
Germanwings is a low-price subsidiary of Lufthansa. This was the first crash by a civil airliner in France since the Concorde crash near Paris in 2000, most of whose victims were German tourists.
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