Off Topic Airbus A320 Crash In French Alps

SAD NEWS.
An Airbus A320 passenger plane carrying more than 140 people crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday, officials said, warning there might not be any survivors.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed the "tragedy" near the town of Digne, saying that the wreckage of the Germanwings plane was in a hard-to-reach area.
"There were 148 people on board," Hollande said in a televised statement expressing solidarity with the families of the victims. "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to believe there are no survivors."
The plane was traveling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. AENA, which operates Barcelona's El Prat Airport, told NBC News that the flight departed from the airport at 9:55 a.m. local time (4:55 a.m. ET) and said a crisis room for families has been set up at the airport.
France's Interior Ministry said "important aerial resources" and medical teams were being mobilized in the area of the wreckage.
The local La Provence newspaper — citing aviation officials — said the flight was carrying 142 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew, according to Reuters.
Germanwings is a no-frills short-haul European carrier owned by German flag-carrier, Lufthansa. The airline said it was aware of the reports but did not have its own confirmed information. Airbus also said it was aware of the reports and that "all our efforts are going toward assisting the situation."
According to flight tracking website Flightradar24, the aircraft involved was a 24-year-old plane that previously flew with Lufthansa.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls expressed "compassion and solidarity" with the victims, saying on Twitter that the accident has "plunged" his nation into "deep sadness."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germanwings-passenger-plane-crashes-france-officials-n329076

 

24 years old? Bloody hell, for a major European company like Lufthansa, that is an old plane.

 

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Whenever I am in the plane I have to switch off until we are landed.

 

Tragic Probably the worst place on the whole route to have a problem too.

 

Tragic, and pretty scary. Is there any detail on what caused the crash yet?

My thoughts are with the families.

 

The airline has an excellent safety record with no previously reported accidents. The average age of its Airbus fleet is just over nine years old, though flight 4U 9525 was a 24-year-old A320.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32030270

Germanwings used to be independent; it may be that the old planes were still being phased out. But yes, it seems pretty old.

 

german wings are a smaller company who must have bought it. i dunno

24 years doesn't sound that old for an airframe. the regualr maintenace etc should means the rest of it is fairly new.

who knows

 

Descended at a normal rate, so there's still a tiny possibility that it managed to crash land in a way that enabled some to survive the impact.

 

Awful news.

Quite worrying of the frequency of plane crashes recently...

 

It's a German Wings plane that's gone down, a cheapo subsidiary airline owned by Lufthansa so not surprised the planes are a bit out of date. Still shouldn't be crashing though. Flew with German Wings a couple of times in the past.

 

Wreckage found, no survivors

R.I.P.

 

sounds like they didn't know where they were or something if it descended like that

 

actually it says it put out distress and rapidly descended. who knows must be something like loss of power

 

It's gone into the side of a mountain. Sounds like the pilot has either been trying to descend to a lower altitude to try and pull off an emergency landing somewhere, even though he's over mountains or the plane has lost power and has started to come down of its own accord. Either way he's run out of clear air/sky in front of him, lost too much altitude and hit the mountain. Nasty way to go but it was probably instantaneous.

14:42
Council official Gilbert Sauvan tells Les Echos newspaper, "The plane is disintegrated". He added that "the largest debris is the size of a car".

15:24
Sebastien Giroux told France's BFM TV that he saw the plane just before the crash. "There was no smoke, nothing else, but given the altitude he had, he could not pass the mountains."

 

I hope it's found that depressurisation of the cabin was the root cause, at least in that scenario they'd have all been unconcious at the point of impact.

Otherwise an 8 minute descent with a certain crash at the end of it, would have been absolutely terrifying.

 

Sixteen schoolchildren and two babies onboard.

A mate of mine works in security at Düsseldorf airport and is on duty today, don't know what that means for him. Most be horrible having to deal with it.

 

I think they would have died on impact, so at least there's that small mercy. But yes, the eight minutes before that would have been terrifying. No distress call from the pilots, which suggests perhaps they were unconcious.

 

Terrible.
Puts everything else into perspective.

RIP.

 

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A plane can be in service for more than 30 years. Mostly they were sold to third world countries after about 15 years.
I was coming from France in 2008,(Air France) it was a small plane after taking off it started making terrible noise.
I thought the end had come.

 

So sorry for all involved, along with their families and friends.