French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the French parliament: "A helicopter managed to land (by the crash site) and has confirmed that unfortunately there were no survivors."
Germanwings said its flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf went down with 144 passengers and six crew on board.
One of the plane's black box recorders has been found and will be examined immediately, France's interior minister said.
The airline believed there were 67 Germans on the flight.
Spain's deputy prime minister said 45 passengers had Spanish names. One Belgian was aboard.
Also among the victims were 16 children and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in the town of Haltern am See in northwest Germany, a spokeswoman said.
Investigators described a scene of devastation where the airliner crashed.
Aerial photographs showed smouldering wreckage and a piece of the fuselage with six windows.
After flying over the crash zone in a helicopter, Bruce Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, said: "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."
French police at the crash site said it would take days to recover the bodies due to difficult terrain, snow and incoming storms.
Police said search teams would stay overnight at altitude.
"We are still searching. It's unlikely any bodies will be airlifted until Wednesday," regional police chief David Galtier said.
French President Francois Hollande had earlier assumed the worst, saying: "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors."...........http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0324/689326-germanwings-plane-crash/24/3/14
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Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'....
ReplyDeleteThe co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the French Alps on Tuesday appeared to want to "destroy the plane", French officials said.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, citing information from the "black box" voice recorder, said the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit.
He intentionally started a descent while the pilot was locked out.
Mr Robin said there was "absolute silence in the cockpit" as the pilot fought to re-enter it.
However, passengers could be heard screaming just before the crash, he added.
The co-pilot, now named as Andreas Lubitz, 28, was alive until the final impact, the prosecutor said..............http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32063587
26/3/15