Plane crash kills 150 people in French Alps; Europe in shock
Seyne-les-Alpes (France) (AFP / AP ) – A plane operated by the budget carrier of Germany’s Lufthansa crashed in a remote area of the French Alps, killing all 150 on board in the worst aviation disaster on French soil in decades.
The accident’s cause remains a mystery but authorities have recovered a black box from the Airbus A320 at the crash site, where rescue efforts were hampered by the mountainous terrain.
Victims included 16 German teenagers and their two teachers on a school trip, and the mayor of their hometown called it ” the darkest day in the history of our city”.
Video images from a government helicopter showed a desolate snow-flecked moonscape, with steep ravines covered in scree. Debris was strewn across the mountainside, pieces of twisted metal smashed into tiny bits.
At airports in Barcelona and Duesseldorf, the departure and destination, some relatives let out wails of grief as they struggled to come to terms with the loss.
According to AP , a black box recovered from the scene and pulverized pieces of debris strewn across Alpine mountainsides held clues to what caused a German jetliner to take an unexplained eight-minute dive Tuesday midway through a flight from Spain to Germany, apparently killing all 150 people on board.
The victims included two babies, two opera singers and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades.
The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Duesseldorf on a flight from Barcelona when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent. The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost radio contact with their control center, France’s aviation authority said, deepening the mystery.
While investigators searched through debris from Flight 9525 on steep and desolate slopes, families across Europe reeled with shock and grief.
March 24, 2015
