Summary
We’re winding down our live coverage for now. Here’s a summary of what we have learned today:
- France’s air accident investigator, BEA, has confirmed that the cockpit voice recorders had been recovered from Germanwings flight 4U9525, which crashed into the French Alps during a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. The agency would not confirm the contents of the audio but said it is “optimistic” about finding the second black box, which contains flight data.
- The leaders of Spain, Germany and France visited the site of the crash. They said they would work together during the difficult time and French president Francois Hollande confirmed that there were no survivors.
- Casualties from 16 separate countries have been confirmed by Germanwings - the largest number being from Germany and Spain. The number of confirmed German victims has increased to 72 people. Spain’s interior ministry said 49 Spaniards had been provisionally identified, but Germanwings said the were 35 Spanish people on board.
- At least three Britons were among the 150 victims. Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, a 37-year-old Spanish woman living in England, was killed with her seven-month-old son Julian Pracz Bandres, a British national. Another victim, Paul Andrew Bramley, 28, had just finished his first year studying hospitality and hotel management in the Swiss city of Lucerne. Another of the Britons to lose their lives was senior quality manager Martyn Matthews, 50, from Wolverhampton.
- The US State Department said that at least three Americans died in the crash. Family members confirmed Yvonne Selke and Emily Selke were on board the plane. The third American has not yet been identified.
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Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, the parent airline of Germanwings, spoke at a press conference in Barcelona. He said the Airbus involved in Tuesday’s crash had “a clean maintenance bill” two days ago.
France’s interior ministry has released this video of the crash zone, which extends about 2 hectares (nearly 5 acres).
Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, the parent airline of Germanwings, said at a press conference in Barcelona that “running an airline during such an accident is terrible”.
He said the airline would do what it could to help the affected and is offering flights to the crash site for the victims’ relatives.
Spohr said the Airbus involved in the crash had “got a clean maintenance bill” two days ago. He said the airline also spoke with the captain who operated the aircraft on Monday and “confirmed that the aircraft was in terrific technical shape”.
The press conference has now ended.
Airline press conference
Airline officials including Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr are holding a press conference in Barcelona.
Spohr said he met with relatives and friends of those who died earlier today.
“This meeting, it’s hard to describe in words,” he said. “It was very emotional for all of us.”
Spohr was at the crash site yesterday. “It was a terrible sight, to see the small pieces of debris,” he said.
He said the priority is now to find out what happened.
“We cannot understand how an airplane that was in perfect technical condition with two experienced pilots was involved in such a terrible accident,” Spohr said.
Two sports journalists from Iran, Milad Hojjatoleslami and Hossein Javadi, were on board the Germanwings flight. They had been covering events around Europe with their fellow journalists, Payam Younesipour and Saeed Zahedian, who planned to travel to Barcelona, but changed their plans.
The Guardian’s Saeed Kamali Dehghan spoke with Younesipour:
If we’d gone to Barcelona, we would all have returned together,” Younesipour said. “We decided to stay in Vienna and focus on the national team’s trainings before the coming matches.”
Younesipour, who had known the victims for a long time and had travelled with them in the past for similar events, said his friends could have survived if they had not had to travel on low-cost flights.
“The fact is that they couldn’t afford other flights because we’ve all volunteered to cover these events with our own money,” he said. “The Iranian media organisations that we work for don’t support us financially.”
In Berlin, Louise Osborne has more on the group of German schoolchildren killed in the crash.
What should have been a day of happiness as students welcomed back their friends from a trip to Barcelona began in shock on Wednesday as the teenagers reeled at the news that 16 of their peers and two of their teachers had been on the Germanwings flight 4U9525.
Hundreds of candles , flowers and notes lined the steps of the Joseph-König High School in Haltern am See in western Germany on Wednesday as students paid tribute to their friends and teachers lost following the plane crash in the French Alps on Tuesday
Leaning against a concrete ping-pong table also covered with red and white candles, a wooden board painted with words in white read, “Yesterday we were many, today we are alone”, while another board asked simply, “Why?”
“What is there to console us? They are dead, just gone,” one 15-year-old told Germany’s daily newspaper Bild. “They had so much in front of them. And now?”
In the small German town, the grief was palpable, tears flowing freely as the teenagers stood together outside a school struggling to accept the tragedy.
“Every second student that you come across is crying,” 22-year-old Laura Jungblut, who works close to the school, told the local newspaper the Halterner Zeitung. “The town is small. We all know about it and can’t understand it.”
The school’s head Ulrich Wessel told reporters the school would never again be the same. “Last Tuesday, we sent off 16 happy students on this trip … What we thought would be an enjoyable trip has ended in tragedy.”
Yvonne Selke and Emily Selke, two of the American victims of the crash, were “wonderful to a fault”, Raymond Selke - husband of Yvonne and father of Emily - has told the Guardian, Joanna Walters writes.
Speaking from the family home in Nokesville, about an hour south-west of Washington, DC, Selke said his wife Yvonne and their daughter Emily Selke had been vacationing together in Spain when they boarded the doomed flight to Germany that crashed with no apparent survivors on Tuesday morning.
“They loved traveling and they loved to be in each other’s company. They were just traveling out there together,” Mr Selke said.
Yvonne Selke, 58, was an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and Emily Selke, 22, was a graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Emily had a passion for music and her ambition was to “manage large shows, music shows in the entertainment industry,” Selke said.
Asked if his wife had any particular passions, he said: “Life.”
Emily had one sibling, an older brother Trevor. “He is doing OK,” Selke said of his son.
In an earlier general statement, Selke had said: “Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke. Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many.” He asked people to dedicate their prayers to his lost loved ones.
Selke told the Guardian that he had been offered passage to the crash site by Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings but at this time, he said, he preferred not to travel and to wait in hope that his wife and daughter’s remains could be repatriated.
“My wife and daughter were wonderful people. Generous, kind, wonderful to a fault,” he said.
Updated
British victims pictured
In the UK, families of three Britons killed the disaster have spoken of their devastating loss, the Press Association news agency reports.
Those who died in the Germanwings’ Airbus A320 crash included seven-month-old Julian Pracz-Bandres from Manchester who was killed alongside his mother Marina Bandres Lopez Belio, 37, originally from Spain. Another of the Britons to lose their lives was senior quality manager Martyn Matthews, 50, from Wolverhampton, who worked in Tipton in the West Midlands. The third Briton who died in the crash was Paul Bramley, from Hull.
Matthews had two grown-up children and his work at Tipton was for German automotive manufacturer Huf. He is thought to have been travelling to Germany for a business meeting.
Bramley was studying hospitality and hotel management at Ceasar Ritz College in Lucerne. According to the Foreign Office, he had just finished his first year at the college and had taken a few days holiday with friends in Barcelona, before flying back to the UK via Dusseldorf to meet his family.
Bramley’s mother, Carol, lives in Majorca and is currently in the UK, having flown over to meet him. She said: “Paul was a kind, caring and loving son. He was the best son, he was my world.”
Bandres Lopez Belio’s husband Pawel Pracz said she had been visiting her family in Spain for her uncle’s funeral and bought the tickets at the last moment. Bandres Lopez Belio had been living in Manchester for seven years with Pracz, both working in the film and video industry.
In the House of Commons, David Cameron offered his “deepest condolences” to those who had lost loved ones in the crash.
Here is the US State Department statement confirming the deaths of three Americans in Tuesday’s crash in the French Alps of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf:
At this time, we can confirm the deaths of US citizens Yvonne Selke and Emily Selke. We are in contact with family members and we extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the 150 people on board.
We can confirm that a third US citizen was on board yesterday’s flight. We are in are in contact with the victim’s next of kin, but we are not releasing the victim’s name at this time out of respect for the family.
We are continuing to review our records to determine whether any other US citizens might have been on board the flight.
Third American victim identified
The State Department has said that there was a third American victim in Tuesday’s crash in the French Alps of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, according to Reuters.
Two other Americans were formally identified as victims: Yvonne Selke and her daughter Emily Selke.
Updated
A Swedish football team was due to be on flight 4U 9525, but the 29 players were spread among three other flights instead. David Crouch reports for The Guardian:
“Four aircraft left at around the same time and flew north over the Alps, and we had players on three of them. You could say we were very, very lucky,” said the team’s director, Adil Kizil. “You could say it is destiny.”
Management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has released a statement about its contractor Yvonne Selke, a US citizen who died in the crash.
Betty Thompson, Booz Allen’s executive vice president and chief personnel officer, said:
Booz Allen and our employees are mourning the sudden and shocking death of Yvonne Selke, an employee of nearly 23 years, and her daughter, Emily, in the Germanwings airliner crash in the French Alps this week.
Yvonne was a wonderful co-worker and a dedicated employee who spent her career with the firm supporting the mission of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
We are in contact with her family to provide comfort and support, and are providing support options to her co-workers, as well.
One of the black boxes discovered was the cockpit voice recorder. The BEA said it was “optimistic” that the second black box, which includes the flight data recorder, would be found.
Here’s how the black box works:
US State Department spokesperson has Jen Psaki confirmed the death of the two American victims in a statement.
We are deeply saddened by the news that Germanwings flight 9525 crashed in southern France on its way from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany.
We are in contact with family members and we extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the 150 people on board.
We are continuing to review our records to determine whether any other US citizens might have been on board the flight.
We are not releasing the names at this time out of respect for the family.
Yvonne Selke was understood to be a government contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at the Pentagon’s satellite mapping branch, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, my colleague Joanna Walters reports.
She was described as a long and highly-regarded staff member, according to a local news report.
BEA press conference - what we learned
Remi Jouty, the BEA’s director, just concluded a press conference with updates on the crash investigation. This is what we learned:
- BEA has successfully extracted recordings from the cockpit, though Jounty would not provide details about what type of audio was on the recordings.
- The audio recording was found around 5pm on Tuesday and sent to the BEA under seal. Jouty said he is “convinced we will have an audio files we can use”.
- Jouty said it could take days to get “usable” information from the audio file.
- The descent lasted about 10 minutes and the plane hit the mountains at high speed. “The descent is very closely to site of impact itself,” Jounty said.
- The bureau is not yet identifying the pilots, as per BEA policy.
We still do not know why the plane crashed.
Jouty said it was the bureau’s policy not to reveal the names of the pilots during the course of the investigation. “We will investigate, of course, the professional history of those pilots,” he said.
The press conference has now concluded.
A Virginia man confirmed that his wife and daughter were the two Americans known to have died in the crash.
Raymond Selke told The Washington Post that his wife, Yvonne Selke, and their daughter, Emily Selke were on board Germanwings flight 4U9525. “Selke said he was too distraught give details about the two or discuss the crash,” the Post wrote.
Emily Selke was an alumna of Drexel University’s Gamma Sigma Sigma Zeta chapter, which posted a message on Facebook to memorialize her.
“As a person and friend, Emily always put others before herself and cared deeply for all those in her life,” the post said. “Emily will be greatly missed by her fellow sisters of Zeta.”
Updated
Just to clarify. There are two bits of kit investigators want to look at. The cockpit voice recorder, which has been found. The other is the data box, which has not yet been found. Experts say the voice recorder is likely to be more useful.
Updated
Jouty refuses to comment on the voices in the sound recorder. The speed of descent was about 3,500ft per minute, he says. There is a question about rumours of lithium in the cargo. Jouty says such questions have to be investigated.
Jouty can’t say how long it will take to study the audio file, whose voice it is and to interpret the information. “It will take time.” He can’t specify the length of time of the files or the language of the pilots.
Updated
Pictures of the black box
The French aviation investigation bureau, the BEA, has released pictures of the successfully retrieved cockpit voice recorder. So-called black boxes are actually orange - this one has been badly damaged in the crash, but the voice files have been successfully retrieved and are now being analysed.
The technical briefing by the French air accident bureau at Le Bourget now gets underway. Remi Jouty, director of the bureau, says the plane hit the mountains at high speed. The final message from the plane was a routine one, confirming its trajectory. One minute later, the trajectory started descending until impact, he says. There is no explanation yet why the plane went down. As for the sound recorder, it was found at 5pm yesterday and handed over to the bureau under seal. “We managed to get some audio - usable files, but it’s still too early to draw conclusions as to what happened,” says Jouty.
Recordings successfully extracted from cockpit voice recorders
As the press conference ends, Reuters reports that the French air accident investigator, BEA, says it has successfully extracted recordings from the cockpit voice recorder of the downed Germanwings Jet, contradicting the New York Times report from earlier.
At the briefing, the Hollande said that the “envelope of the second black box has been found, unfortunately not the black box itself”. He said the search goes on for that.
The BEA press conference is about to start.
Updated
Merkel then takes a step, shakes hands with Hollande and gives him a kiss on both cheeks. “We are all going to work together in very difficult circumstances,” says Rajoy. He too says everything will be done to identify and return the remains to relatives. He thanks Hollande and the French people for their generosity. The three leaders are standing in front of their respective national flags as well as the blue EU flags. He shakes hands with Hollande and embraces Merkel, and the session is over. Not so much a press conference as show of European solidarity at a time of tragedy and grief.
Hollande returns to the theme of European solidarity before handing over to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. She offers thanks to Hollande and says she feels very close to the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy (most of the victims were German and Spanish). “Everything will be ready” for the relatives should they wish to come, says Merkel, who reiterates that all will be done to find out what happened no matter how long it takes.
Francois Hollande has begun the three leaders’ press conference at Seyne les Alpes near the crash site. He said the emergency services mobilised as quickly as possible once news of the disaster emerged. This was a great show of solidarity but unfortunately there were no survivors, he said. The area was particularly inaccessible. The bodies are being identified in preparation for the remains to be returned to relatives. Psychological support for the relatives is also being prepared. “We owe it to the families” to find out why this disaster happened, says the French president.
Updated
The air accident bureau press conference has been pushed back because the French, Spanish and German leaders are due to speak.
A briefing at Le Bourget should be starting soon.
Salle comble au BEA au Bourget avant conf presse sur crash #Germanwings prévue à 16 h (retard probable : 20 à 30 mn) pic.twitter.com/qiOn9CoTZ8
— Anne Brigaudeau (@AnneBrigaudeau) March 25, 2015
The US state department has confirmed the death of two Americans in the crash, tweets the Washington Post’s Mark Berman.
Just in: The @StateDept confirms that two U.S. citizens were killed in the Germanwings plane crash in the Alps.
— Mark Berman (@markberman) March 25, 2015
The New York Times is reporting that investigators have been unable to retrieve any data from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder.
the inquiry has been hampered further, an official said, by the discovery that the second black box, which was found on Wednesday, was severely damaged, and its memory card dislodged and missing.
The two Iranian journalists have been identified as Milad Hojatoleslami, who worked for semi-official Tasnim news agency, and Hossein Javadi, a journalist at the Vatan-e-Emrouz daily. The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has offered his condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the crash.
Sincere condolences to families& friends of #GermanWingsCrash victims; my heart goes out to those who lost loved ones.May they rest in peace
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) March 25, 2015
Updated
Here’s more detail about what we know about the 144 passengers (with help from AFP):
Germany
Germanwings confirmed that at least 72 Germans were on board, including two babies and 16 teenage school pupils and their two female teachers from the Joseph Koenig Gymnasium in Haltern am See, north of Duesseldorf.
The group had been on a week-long exchange trip in Llinars del Valles near Barcelona, paying a reciprocal visit after Spanish students came to Haltern in December.
Kazakh-German opera singer Oleg Bryjak, 54, who had just performed the character Alberich in Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu was also among the dead.
Spain
At least 49 Spaniards died, junior security minister Francisco Martinez told a news conference. Germanwings executive Thomas Winkelmann, however, said the latest estimate was that 35 passengers were Spanish.
Reports in Spain and Britain named one victim as Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, 37, and her baby. Originally from Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees but living in Rochdale near Manchester in Britain, Lopez-Belio had been attending a relative’s funeral in Spain.
Other victims, according to sources and reports, included a young married couple as well as numerous local Catalan business figures, including four members of the same family.
Other Europeans
At least three British nationals died, according to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. The Foreign Office confirmed that 28-year-old Paul Bramley was among the victims. Another Briton has been named as 50-year-old father Martyn Matthews. His death has not been confirmed by the Foreign Office.
One Belgian, one Dutch and one Dane have also been confirmed by the airline or local authorities.
United States
Germanwings said two Americans were on board, while French Prime Minister Manuel Valls put the number at one earlier in the day.
South Americans
Two Argentines were on board, according to Germanwings. A third, who lives in Paraguay, also died, according to his brother.
Colombians Maria del Pilar Tejada and Luis Eduardo Medrano died, the Colombian foreign ministry said. Germanwings said only there was only one Colombian victim.
Two Venezuelans were also on board, according to the airline.
Australia
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said two Australians were on board. They were named as Carol Friday and her son Greig.
Japan
The Japanese foreign ministry said two Japanese men were on the passenger list - Satoshi Nagata, who was in his 60s and Junichi Sato, in his 40s. Both men lived in Duesseldorf. “It is very likely that they were on board,” a ministry official told AFP in Tokyo.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry confirmed that three of its citizens - Erbol and Adil Imankulov and Aizhan Isengaliyeva - were among the dead. The ministry said that it was trying to confirm whether a fourth passenger, Yelena Bles, held Kazakh citizenship following information from Germany authorities.
Others
Two Iranians and one Israeli were on the flight, according to Germanwings. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Wednesday that other countries with nationals on the Barcelona-Duesseldorf flight came from Morocco and Mexico.
Updated
Here’s video of Merkel, Hollande and Rajoy’s visit to the operation centre in the Alps, from journalist Antje Lorenz. The French president can be heard thanking the reovery workers.
Second black box 'found'
The second black box has been found severely damaged, according to the aviation site AirLive.net.
BREAKING #Germanwings #4U9525 Second black box found, but severely damaged; memory chip dislodged and missing. pic.twitter.com/FOnC8XRZ9U
— AirLive.net (@airlivenet) March 25, 2015
The French news site iTele has an updated breakdown of the nationalities of the victims.
#4U9525 - 1 Belge - 1 Colombien - 1 Danois - 1 Américain - 1 Israélien - 1 Néerlandais - Maroc et Mexique parmi les "nationalités avérées"
— iTELE (@itele) March 25, 2015
The leaders of France, Spain and Germany are being briefed on the scale of the recovery operation.
5 helicopters, 200 firefighters and 500 gendarmes are currently "on site”, #4U9525 commander tells FR President Hollande.
— John Walton (@thatjohn) March 25, 2015
Arrivés à Seyne-les-Alpes, @fhollande, @marianorajoy et A. Merkel s'entretiennent avec les responsables des secours pic.twitter.com/ZAaAhyLdh0
— Élysée (@Elysee) March 25, 2015
France’s Bureau of Investigation and Analysis has released an image of the recovered but damaged cockpit voice recorder. Investigators are hoping to release data from the device later today. A second flight recorder has yet to be recovered. .
Merkel and Hollande travelled together to the crash site. Rajoy arrived slightly later in a separate helicopter.
Le président @fhollande et la chancelière Angela Merkel sont arrivés à Seyne-les-Alpes où sont basés les secours pic.twitter.com/algHuJm9DS
— Élysée (@Elysee) March 25, 2015
Leaders of France, Germany and Spain arrive at crash site
The leaders of France, Germany and Spain, have arrived at the operations centre in the Alps. Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Mariano Rajoy flew into Seyne-les-Alps by helicopter. TV pictures showed the leaders greeting recovery workers.
Live: Hollande and Merkel have arrived at the scene of the #4U9525 site. #Germanwings pic.twitter.com/4JMGVUTV4J - @PollyR_Aviation
— AirLive.net (@airlivenet) March 25, 2015
#live auf #euronews: #Hollande, #Merkel und #Rajoy am Absturzort #4U9525 #Germanwings pic.twitter.com/zwKItQAr93
— euronews Deutsch (@euronewsde) March 25, 2015
Updated
The Foreign Office has also issued a statement on behalf of the family of British resident Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, (37) and her baby son Julian Pracz-Bandres.
Her husband Pawel Pracz said:
My wife Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio and our son Julian Pracz-Bandres were on-board the plane that crashed in the Alps yesterday.
We have been living in Manchester for 7 years. Marina was an editor and colourist, and we were both working in post-production for film and video.
Marina was visiting her family in Spain for her uncle’s funeral, she bought the tickets at the last moment, and decided to return to Manchester quickly as she wanted to return to her daily routine as soon as possible.
I’m with my closest family in Manchester, and in close contact with our family in Spain at this very difficult time. We are devastated and would like to request that we be allowed to grieve in peace as a family without intrusion at this difficult time.”
Second British victim named
The Foreign Office has named one of the three British vicims as 28-year-old Paul Andrew Bramley.
In a statement it said:
Paul was originally from Hull. He was studying hospitality and hotel management at Ceasar Ritz College in Lucerne and about to start an internship on 1 April. Paul had just finished his first year at the college and had taken a few days holiday with friends in Barcelona, before flying back to the UK via Dusseldorf to meet his family.
Paul’s mother Carol lives in Majorca and is currently in the UK, having flown here to meet with Paul. Speaking today, Carol Bramley, said: “Paul was a kind, caring and loving son. He was the best son, he was my world.”
Paul’s father Philip Bramley who lives in Hull has also said that they are both deeply shocked and will miss him.
Earlier another British victim was named as Martyn Matthews. His death has yet to be confirmed by the Foreign Office.
Summary
There’s a summary of what we know so far about the crash at the start of the blog. Here’s a roundup of the new information we have learnt today:
- At least three Britons were among the 150 victims when Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed into the French Alps. One of the British victims has been named as 50-year-old father Martyn Matthews.
- Information from the recovered damaged cockpit recorder could be released later today, as investigators try to determine the cause of the crash. A second flight recorder has yet to be recovered.
- Casualties from 16 separate countries have been confirmed by Germanwings including from the US, Australia and Denmark. The number of confirmed German victims has increased to 72 people. Spain’s interior ministry said 49 Spaniards had been provisionally identified, but Germanwings said the were 35 Spanish people on board.
- The leaders of Spain, Germany and France are due to visit the crash site this afternoon. Earlier some of the families of the victims visited the site.
- Some Germanwings pilots are refusing to fly after the crash, forcing the airline to cancel at least one flight. A spokeswoman said: “One Germanwings flight has been cancelled because pilots don’t feel they are in a position to fly.”
The Danish authorities have confirmed that one Danish citizen was aboard 4U9525, according to the Danish news site Berlingske. Earlier Germanwings also that a Dane was among the victims. Casualties from 16 separate countries have been confirmed. Most of the victims were from Germany and Spain.
Updated
PA has sent a reporter to the home of businessman Martyn Matthews, from Wolverhampton, who has been named as one at least three British victims.
The 50-year-old father of two grown-up children is thought to have been travelling to Germany for a business meeting.
Neighbours of Matthews said they were unaware that he was believed to have been on board the Germanwings flight.
Police standing outside Mr Matthews’ home in the Old Hall Park area of Wolverhampton asked reporters not to knock at the door of his semi-detached home.
Four people later left the property without comment.
Matthews worked for automotive manufacturer Huf, which has a factory in Dusseldorf.
A spokeswoman for the company’s site in Tipton, near Dudley, declined to issue any statement in tribute to Mr Matthews out of respect for his family.
David Cameron has confirmed that at least three Briton’s were among the victims. Speaking at the last prime minister’s questions of this parliament he said news about the victims of the crash was “heartbreaking”.
Updated
Germanwings chief executive Thomas Winkelmann has been giving more detail of the nationalities of the confirmed casualties. He said 35 Spaniards were among the victims (fewer than a provisional figure given by the Spanish authorities) and that 72 Germans also died.
He said there were two victims each from the following the countries: Australia, Argentina, Iran, Venezuela and the United States.
He also confirmed one casualty from each of these countries: Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, and Israel.
Winkelmann said the the nationalities of some victims had yet to confirmed because of dual nationality.
“The establishing of the nationality of some of the passengers is proving difficult. We are in contact with a total of 123 families,” Winkelmann said at a press conference.
Updated
The Spanish interior minister Francisco Martinez says the Spanish authorities have tentatively identified 49 Spanish victims.
Francisco Martínez: "Se han identificado provisionalmente 49 víctimas españolas gracias a los familiares" #4U9525 pic.twitter.com/w41gjnXMeN
— Ministerio Interior (@interiorgob) March 25, 2015
Updated
Lufthansa the parent company of Germanwings still has no idea what caused the crash and is refusing to speculate.
“It is inexplicable this could happen to a plane free of technical problems and with an experienced, Lufthansa-trained pilot,” Carsten Spohr told journalists in Frankfurt.
The examination of the recovered damaged black box is currently underway, and we may get results later today. French transport minister, Alain Vidalies said that if voices have been recorded, the investigation would proceed “fairly quickly.”
“After that, if we have to analyse the sounds, that’s a job that will take several weeks, but it’s a job that can offer us some explanations,” Vidalies told French radio.
A second black box, which recorded flight data, has yet to be found.
France’s air force says it scrambled a Mirage fighter jet to the area when the Germanwings flight lost radar contact, but arrived too late to help, AP reports.
An air force spokesman said that the Mirage 2000 took off minutes after it became clear that there was a problem and went to the A320’s last known location, but arrived after it crashed in the Alps on Tuesday.
The spokesman said that the Mirage didn’t locate the site of the crash. Helicopters later found the debris scattered across a mountainside.
Updated
The Bayern Munich football team held a minute’s silence for the victims of the crash before the start of training today.
A minute's silence before training - FC Bayern München pay tribute to the victims of flight #4U9525. pic.twitter.com/DE3jLiMD4J
— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) March 25, 2015
Black box data could be released today
Brice Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, said the investigation could take weeks, but data from the recovered black box could be released later today.
“The priority on the ground is to identify the bodies,” he told reporters after flying over the crash site. “We owe that to the families of the victims. But it will not be done in five minutes. It is going to take a number of weeks and I think everyone should be aware that we are talking about a long time.”
Asked about the causes of the crash he said “at the moment the reasons are completely undecided”.
He said there maybe an update on the examination of the first recovered flight recorder by this afternoon. He confirmed that the black box was damaged and that the second flight recorder was yet to be recovered.
Earlier he told Reuters what he saw over the crash site: “We saw an aircraft that had literally been ripped apart, the bodies are in a state of destruction, there is not one intact piece of wing or fuselage.”
Updated
Victims are also feared from Colombia, Argentina, Australia, Japan, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico and Britain, according to AFP citing officials from these countries.
A Swedish third division football team was due to be on the plane, but changed planes at the last moment. “May they rest in peace,” Dalkurd FF goalkeeper Frank Pettersson wrote on Twitter.
The club added its condolences to the victims.
Vi sänder våra djupaste kondoleanser till alla de drabbade av dagens hemska tragedi i Frankrike. Må ni vila i frid. #4U9525
— Dalkurd FF (@DalkurdFF) March 24, 2015
At least three British nationals were killed Hammond said in a brief statement to reporters outside the foreign office.
“We currently believe that three British people have been killed in this tragedy but we can’t rule out the possibility there are further British people involved,” Hammond told reporters.
“The level of information on the flight manifest doesn’t allow us to rule out that possibility.”
Here’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond statement about the British victims yesterday. He has since said three Briton’s were among the victims.
This is a tragic incident for those involved and their families, I send my deepest condolences to those who have lost family or friends.
I don’t want to speculate on numbers of British nationals involved until we have completed our checks on all the passenger information. However, based on the information available to us, it is sadly likely that there were some British nationals on board the flight. We are providing consular assistance and will give further help as more information becomes available. We are working closely with the French, German and Spanish authorities, and the airline, to establish the facts.
The UK Air Accident Investigation Branch, and UK Disaster Victim Identification experts, are also standing by to offer assistance to the French authorities, if required.
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Ulrich Wessel, the head teacher of the Josef-König School in Haltern School, has just made an emotional statement at the school’s press conference.
Looking physically shaken by a tragedy which claimed 16 pupils and two teacher, he said: “Our sympathy goes out to the parents who have lost their beloved sons and daughters ... This is a tragedy that makes you speechless ... we have to accept the grieving. Once we have managed to share in the mourning then we will have done a lot of the journey.”
He said he appreciated the messages of sympathy from across the world.
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Three Britons among victims
AT least three Britons are believed to have been killed when the Germanwings jet crashed, according to an update from Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond
Staff from the German school which lost 16 pupils and two teachers are giving a press conference. The group from Joseph-Koenig Gymnasium high school in Haltern, was returning from a Spanish exchange trip.
The school will be holding a special assembly to grief the victims at 11am, a spokeswoman said.
Lufthansa and Germanwings is marking 24 hours since the crash happened with a minute’s silence at its headquarters in Cologne.
Lufthansa and Germanwings are calling for a minute’s silence today at 10.53 a.m. to commemorate the victims of 4U9525. #indeepsorrow
— Lufthansa (@lufthansa) March 25, 2015
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British victim named
A British victim has been named as Martyn Matthews, a 50-year-old father of two from Wolverhampton, the Telegraph reports.
It said he had been on business in Barcelona and was en route to a meeting in Germany when the passenger jet crashed into a mountainside on Tuesday.
He leaves a wife, Sharon, 48, and children Jade, 20, and Nathan, 23, it said.
In the village Seyne-les-Alpes the mood is grief and sadness, writes Angelique Chrisafis.
Looking up at the snow capped mountain-top beyond which the plane had crashed, Maurice Borel, a retired volunteer fireman, said: “It is going to be very hard indeed for the emergency workers trying to recover the victims’ remains. I feel for everyone, I really do. Nothing like this has ever happened here before.”
Here’s a clip from French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s interview with French raido about the recovery of the damaged black box.
Speaking through a BBC translator he said: “The black box was damaged, but it will be possible to put it back together in order to be able to make use of it and to determine the conditions surrounding this drama.”
He said an explosion was unlikely because the debris is concentrated in an area of around 1.5 hectares, suggesting it would have been more widespread if the plane had blown up.
In Seyne-les-alpes, the picturesque alpine mountain village of 1500 people which had been transformed into a make-shift centre of operations, support staff are preparing to greet the first relatives of the victims, writes Angelique Chrisafis.
Many families had chosen to fly to Marseille over night and be bussed up into the alps to get as near as possible to the crash site and to begin grieving as they waited for relatives’ remains.
Nurses and psychological support staff told journalists that it would be a particularly difficult form of grief counselling because families would not immediately be able to have their loved one’s remains.
Families would be supported and encouraged to leave remembrance notices in the condolences book describing their loved ones, their memories and the last time they saw them.
The make-shift chapel had been decorated with flowers and flags of the victims’ countries, with chairs, tables and drinks for the relatives. Over 800 beds in the vicinity had been requisitioned for support staff, families and emergency services. Local language teachers had offered to help translate for the families.
Germanwings pilots refusing to fly
Some Germanwings pilots are refusing to fly after the crash, forcing the airline to cancel at least one flight, AFP reports.
A spokeswoman for Germanwings’ parent company, German flag carrier Lufthansa, said that “Lufthansa flights are going ahead as planned. One Germanwings flight has been cancelled because pilots don’t feel they are in a position to fly.”
She declined to say how many pilots declined to work on Wednesday.
The flight cancelled was the connection from the western German city of Duesseldorf to Barcelona.
A spokesman for the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit, Joerg Handwerg, insisted the decision was not because of concerns about safety.
“It has nothing to do with safety. The pilots have friends and colleagues who have died,” Handwerg said on public television.
“That is such a heavy emotional burden that it’s better not to get into the cockpit.”
On Tuesday, Germanwings had reported “occasional flight disruptions within its route network” as pilots were too shocked to fly following the news of the crash of an A320 Germanwings jet.
“We understand their decision,” Germanwings executive Thomas Winkelmann said on Tuesday.
Summary
Welcome to our live coverage of the aftermath of the crash in the French Alps of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf.
Crash scene investigators have resumed the search for clues as to what caused the crashed that killed all 150 people on board.
Overnight French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the plane’s black box had been found damaged but that its information should be usable. Today the victims, which included two Australians and British nationals, are expected to be formally named.
You can follow how news of Tuesday’s crash unfolded on our previous live blog. Today the focus is likely to be on the causes of the crash and the identity of the victims.
Here’s what we know so far:
- The plane left Barcelona at 10.01am local time (0901 GMT) on Tuesday morning, with 144 passengers, including two babies, and six crew on board. It is believed there were 67 Germans on board.
- The aircraft reached its regular cruising altitude of 38,000ft at 10.45am, 44 minutes into the flight. A minute or two later, it began an unexplained descent.
- The descent lasted eight minutes: contact was lost at 10.53am, when the plane was at 6,000ft. Germanwings told reporters at a press conference that it does not know why the descent was initiated.
- There have been conflicting reports about whether a distress call was issued. A Germanwings spokesman said the company had conflicting information about the issue from air traffic controllers. French aviation sources have also given contradictory information on this point.
- The black box and flight data recorder - crucial in piecing together what happened - has been found in a damaged state. French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said information from the device should still help determine the cause of the crash.
- The crash site is in the commune of Méolans-Revel, an isolated area of small villages and hamlets that are difficult to reach. Debris is scattered over an area of 0.75 sq miles (2 sq km), according to French search and rescue officials.
- The aircraft was 24 years old, bought by Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, in 1991. It underwent a routine technical check by Lufthansa technicians in Düsseldorf on Monday. It had received a major inspection in the summer of 2013.
- The captain had more than 10 years’ flying experience with Lufthansa and Germanwings, and had recorded more than 6,000 hours’ flying time.
- Lufthansa vice-president Heike Birlenbach said the company is treating the crash as an accident, but French prime minister Manual Valls said “no hypothesis” could be ruled out.
- The leaders of France, Germany and Spain are due to visit the operations centre at 2pm today. Angela Merkel said the disaster had plunged all three countries into “deep mourning”. Spain’s king, Felipe VI, said he was cancelling his state visit to France to return to Spain.
- Sebastien Giroux, one of the first witnesses, said he saw the aircraft flying very low. “There was no smoke or particular sound or sign of anything wrong, but at the altitude it was flying [at] it was clearly not going to make it over the mountains,” he told BFM-TV. “I didn’t see anthing wrong with the plane, but it was too low.”
- Those on board the first helicopter to land near the site confirmed there were no survivors, with witnesses describing how the plane had disintegrated with no piece of wreckage bigger than a car.
- Images from the crash site shows debris strewn over a wide area. German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who flew over the area, called it “a scene of horror”.
The passengers
Details have emerged about some of the 144 passengers:
- Early reports indicate there were 67 German and 45 Spanish passengers on the plane. There were also two pilots and four cabin crew.
- Two Australian victims have been named as Carol Friday and her son Greig.
- Opera singers Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner – along with Radner’s husband and baby – were among those lost.
- Sixteen students and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig Gymnasium high school in Haltern, Germany, were on board, returning from a Spanish exchange trip.
- The UK foreign office said it was “sadly likely” that a number of British nationals were on the plane.
- Among those travelling on the plane with her baby was Marina Bandres, who came from Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees and lived in Britain. She had been attending a funeral for a relative.
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