Airbus A320 with 148 passengers crashed in French Alps

An Airbus A320 airplane has crashed in the French Alps between Barcelonnette and Digne, French aviation officials and police have said.

The jet belongs to the German airline Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa.

The plane had reportedly been en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf and was carrying 142 passengers and six crew.

French President Francois Hollande said: “The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors.”

Mr Hollande said the crash was a tragedy and called for solidarity with the victims, adding that the area was very difficult to access.

The plane issued a distress call at 10:47 (09:47 GMT), according to sources quoted by AFP news agency.

Search-and-rescue teams are headed to the crash site at Meolans-Revels, said regional council head Eric Ciotti.

The interior ministry said debris had been located at an altitude of 2,000 metres.

The airplane was registered in 1990 according to various sources and has been therefore almost 25 years old.

This graph from FlightRadar24 shows how the plane lost altitude and speed prior to disappearing from the radar.

The A320 is one of Airbus’s biggest selling aircraft, with nearly 3,900 delivered and almost 7,600 ordered in total.

This is the first major disaster involving a Germanwings plane.

Source: CBS, BBC