Germanwings plane crash: what we know

Here’s what we know so far about the crash in the French Alps of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf.

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 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.
A team from Germanwings is on its way to the crash site to help with the investigation.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who is planning to travel to the crash site on Wednesday, said the disaster had plunged Germany, France and Spain 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.”