Airbus crashes in French Alps: 148 feared dead
NEWS DESK (DİHA) - An Airbus plane operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline crashed in southern France on March 24 en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, police and aviation officials said.
All 148 people aboard are likely dead, French President Francois Hollande said. "There are not thought to be any survivors," Hollande told reporters. "The cause is at present unknown," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a separate statement. A spokesman for the DGAC aviation authority, on the other hand, said the airplane crashed near the town of Barcelonnette about 100 km north of the French Riviera city of Nice. The crashed A320 is 24 years old and has been with the parent Lufthansa group since 1991, according to online database airfleets.net.
The plane issued a distress call at 10:47 am, sources speaking to AFP said. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who said debris from the plane had already been found, was heading to the scene. Shares in Airbus, the European aerospace giant, slumped on news of the accident, down 1.77 percent to 58.94 euros at 1100 GMT after briefly sliding two percent.
(nt)
