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France plane crash: black boxes found, no survivors expected

“A picture of horror.” That’s how German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier described the site where a Germanwings Airbus A320 plane cra...
French Plane Crash

“A picture of horror.”

That’s how German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier described the site where a Germanwings Airbus A320 plane crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday.

“The grief of the families and loved ones is immeasurable,” Steinmeier said, after flying over the area in the Alps in southeastern France. “We must stand with them. We are all united in great grief.”

Flight 9525 took off just after 10 a.m. Tuesday from Barcelona, Spain, for Dusseldorf, Germany, with 144 passengers — among them two babies — and six crew members. It went down at 10:53 a.m. (5:53 a.m. ET) in a remote area near Digne-les-Bains in the Alpes de Haute Provence region.

All aboard are presumed dead.

Helicopter crews found the airliner in pieces, none of them bigger than a small car, and human remains strewn for several hundred meters, according to Gilbert Sauvan, a high-level official in the Alpes de Haute Provence region who is being briefed on the operation.

Authorities were not able to retrieve any bodies Tuesday, with the frozen ground complicating the effort. Wednesday may not be much easier, with snow in the forecast.

Spanish and German officials moved to join hundreds of French firefighters and police in the area, working together to help in the recovery effort and try to figure out exactly what happened.

One of the aircraft’s data recorders, the so-called black boxes, has been found, according to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, but it was too early to tell what it would say about the crash.

“We don’t know much about the flight and the crash yet,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. “And we don’t know the cause.”

Germanwings started in 2002 and was taken over by Lufthansa seven years later as its low-cost airline, handling an increasing number of mid-range flights around Europe.

It was forced to cancel some flights Tuesday because there were crews that didn’t want to fly upon hearing news of the crash.

Students, teachers among the victims

There were about 150 people aboard the Germanwings plane when it crashed in the French Alps.

Spain’s King Felipe VI said “high numbers of Spaniards, Germans and Turks” were on the aircraft. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it’s likely British nationals were on the plane, but officials have yet to confirm how many were aboard.

Weeping relatives arrived throughout the day at Barcelona’s airport, where a terminal was blocked off for them. Medics and psychologists were in private space to assist families.

Here’s what we know about the victims and their nationalities so far:

  • Germany

There were at least 67 Germans on board, Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann said. But he cautioned that figure could change.

Sixteen students and two teachers from Haltern, Germany, were on the plane, Winkelmann said. The German students were returning home after spending a week at the Giola Institute, in the town of Llinars del Valles, near Barcelona.

The Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona said that two German opera singers who performed there this month in a production of “Siegfried,” Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner, had perished in the crash.

  • Colombia

Two Colombian nationals, María del Pilar Tejada, a 36-year-old architect who was working in Equatorial Guinea, and Luis Eduardo Medrano, a 33-year-old economist, lost their lives on the flight, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry said.

  • Australia

At least two Australians were killed, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said. They are still trying to determine if more Australians were on board.

“Sadly, I can confirm that there were two Australian citizens onboard, a mother and her adult son from Victoria,” Bishop said.

  • The Netherlands

The Dutch foreign ministry said there was at least one Dutch national on board.

  • Belgium

Belgium’s foreign ministry said one Belgian national was on the plane.

  • Argentina

Two Argentines were aboard the plane, the state-run Telam news agency reported, citing consular officials.

France plane crash: black boxes found, no survivors expected

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