Germanwings crash: Timeline of European air disasters

[Dubious]

Here is a summary of major European plane crashes in the last 15 years

2014

July 17: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes near Grabove in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of them Dutch. Pro-Russian rebels are widely accused of shooting the plane down using a surface-to-air missile - they deny responsibility.

Crash near Smolensk airport in April 2010 (AP)


2010

April 10: A Tupolev 154 plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashes near the Russian airport of Smolensk, killing more than 90 people on board.

The Brazilian Navy recovers debris of the Air France flight AF447 from the Atlantic Ocean (Reuters)

2009

June 1: An Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashes into the Atlantic with 228 people on board. Search teams later recover some 50 bodies in the ocean.

2008

September 14: A Boeing-737 crashes on landing near the central Russian city of Perm, killing all 88 passengers and crew members on board.

August 20: A Spanair plane veers off the runway on take-off at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing 154 people and injuring 18.

2006

August 22: A Russian Tupolev-154 passenger plane with 170 people on board crashes north of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.

July 9: A Russian S7 Airbus A-310 skids off the runway during landing at Irkutsk airport in Siberia. A total of 124 people on board die, but more than 50 survive the crash.

May 3: An Armavia Airbus A-320 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi, killing all 113 people on board.

2005

August 14: A Helios Airways flight from Cyprus to Athens with 121 people on board crashes north of the Greek capital Athens, apparently after a drop in cabin pressure.

2003

January 8: A Turkish Airlines plane with 76 passengers and crew on board crashes while coming in to land at Diyarbakir.

2002

July 1: Seventy-one people, many of them children die when a Russian Tupolev 154 aircraft on a school trip to Spain collides with a Boeing 757 transport plane over southern Germany.

2001

October 8: A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) airliner collides with a small plane in heavy fog on the runway at Milan's Linate airport, killing 118 people.

October 4: A Russian Sibir Airlines Tupolev 154,en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia, explodes in mid-air and crashes into the Black Sea, killing 78 passengers and crew.

July 3: A Russian Tupolev 154,en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains to the Russian port of Vladivostok, crashes near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 133 passengers and 10 crew.

Concorde crash in 2000 (AP)

2000

July 25: Air France Concorde en route for New York crashes into a hotel outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing 113 people, including four on the ground.

Germanwings crash: Timeline of European air disasters - Telegraph

 

[Dubious]

Airbus A320 crash in the Alps: Francois Hollande says 150 feared dead, no survivors expected
Airbus A320 operated by budget airline Germanwings crashes into mountain en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, and agencies

2:15PM GMT 24 Mar 2015

A German passenger jet has crashed in the French Alps with all 150 passengers and crew feared dead.

The Airbus A320, operated by the budget airline Germanwings, was en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it vanished from radar screens at 09.39 GMT.

A rescue helicopter which has landed at the crash site found no signs of survivors.

The passengers are understood to be predominantly German, Spanish and Turkish.



President Hollande: 'no survivors likely'


The investigation into the cause of the crash is centred on why the Airbus went into a steep descent just a minute after reaching its cruising altitude, without informing air traffic controllers that it was in distress.

Germanwings flight GWI18G / 4U9525 took off from Barcelona at 9.01GMT, then reached its cruising altitude at 9.45, maintaining its height for less than a minute before going into a sharp descent for eight minutes.

Contact between the aircraft and French air traffic control broke off at 9.53 when the Airbus was at 6,000ft, but at no point did the pilots send a mayday signal or tell air traffic controllers there was a problem.

The airline said it could not say whether it had been a "conscious" decision by the pilots to go into a dive, or whether the crew were incapacitated.

It is thought that it came down moments later near Prads-Haute-Bléone, between Digne-les-Bains and Barcelonnette, north-west of Monaco. Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, said debris had been found at an altitute of 6,500ft on a group of mountains called Les Trois Eveches.

Francois Hollande, the French president, said no survivors were expected to be found, after two gendarmerie helicopters flew over the crash site.

M Vidalies said footage from the helicopters showed "wreckage and a few bodies around the plane".

Germanwings said in a statement that 144 passengers - including two babies - and six crew were on board. They are thought to include 67 Germans and 45 Spaniards.

Sixteen German schoolchildren who had been on an exchange trip to the Catalan town of Liners del Valles are also reported to have been on board, together with two teachers. Others are thought to include tourists returning home from Barcelona and Majorca.

Oliver Wagner, a spokesman for the airline, said: "I promise that we will do everything to clear up the events thoroughly. We are endlessly sorry for what has happened."

The 24-year-old aircraft had been used for flights between Britain, Spain, Austria and Germany and flew from Heathrow to Dusseldorf and back on Sunday afternoon.

The Spanish authorities said 45 Spaniards were on board, with Germans and Turks making up most of the rest of the manifest. The Foreign Office said it was "urgently working with local authorities to establish the nationalities of those on board".

Lufthansa said it knew exactly who was on the aircraft, and in which seat, but did not yet know all of their nationalities.

The flightpath of the Germanwings Airbus

It is France's worst aviation disaster since an Air France Concorde crashed on take-off near Paris in 2000, killing 113 people.

M Hollande said: “There are not thought to be any survivors. The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors.

"It is a tragedy on our soil."

He said the crash site was "particularly hard to access". Local mountain guides said the area would only be accessible on foot or by skiiers dropped by helicopters, but bad weather will make it difficult to send helicopters this afternoon.


M Hollande went on: "An aeroplane of the Germanwings company has just crashed near to Digne.

"I want to express all my solidarity with the families of the victims. A counselling unit will be established to provide psychological support.

"I will discuss the incident with (Germany's) Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish King Philip VI, who is visiting us today. As we wait, our first feeling should be one of solidarity."

He added: "I will have meetings with Chancellor Merkel because there were a number of German victims, and I will also contact the King of Spain.

"This is an air tragedy and we will try to understand the reasons and causes of the accident, and obviously we will give the concerned authorities as well as the victims support.

"This is a mourning period, because this is a tragedy that has happened on our territory. I intend to find out if there were other consequences of the accident ... and we will find out more in the hours to come."

The owner of a campsite said he heard a series of loud noises in the air shortly before the crash.

Pierre Polizzi said: "There are often fighter jets flying over, so I thought it sounded just like that. I looked outside but I couldn't see any fighter planes.

"The noise I heard was long - like 8 seconds - as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane speed. There was another long noise about 30 seconds later."

Relatives of those on board are gathering at the airports in Barcelona and Dusseldorf.

Germanwings is a low-cost airline founded in 2002. Since 2009 it has been owned by Lufthansa, and the crashed aircraft, registration D-AIPX, has been owned by Lufthansa since new in 1991.

David Cameron has offered the support of the UK Air Accidents Investigation to help French investigators work out what caused the crash.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman confirmed he had been informed of the "tragic" news and added: "He would wish to express how his thoughts are very much with the families and friends of all of those who were on board that flight."

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "My heart goes out to the family and friends of those people who appear to have lost their lives in this devastating air crash in the Alps."

Airbus A320 crash in the Alps: Francois Hollande says no survivors expected - Telegraph


RIP

More crashed planes

 

[jammersat]

Israeli citizen on board crashed Germanwings flight


Israeli citizen on board crashed Germanwings flight | Jewish Telegraphic Agency


JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli citizen was aboard the Germanwings flight 4U 9525 that crashed in the French Alps, Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed.

Eyal Baum, 40, a businessman living in Germany who was flying home from Barcelona, was among the 144 passengers killed on Tuesday morning in the crash of the Airbus plane operated by Lufthansa’s budget airline, according to the Jerusalem Post. Six crew members also died.

Other Israeli media said Baum lives in Barcelona and was traveling to Dusseldorf, Germany, for business.

The Foreign Ministry said his family, of Hod Hasharon in central Israel, had been notified. The family reportedly had contacted the ministry earlier in the day when reports of the crash were made public, knowing that Baum had a ticket for the flight.

A black box from the plane has been found. Recovering the remains reportedly will take several days because of the remote area’s difficult landscape. It is not believed that the crash was terror related.

Sixteen German high school students and two of their teachers returning from a weeklong trip to Spain, as well as two German opera singers, were among the passengers killed in the crash.

The plane lost altitude for eight minutes before crashing; it did not issue a distress call.

 

[Schutz]

Literally all involve Russia and Spain, I dont think I would be stupid enough to fly on half of those planes or airlines though!

Got a flight booked with Qatar soon, zero crashes.