Tragic Flight 4U 9525 took eight terrifying minutes to plunge 32,000ft into a mountain, but made no mayday call.
All 150 people, including children, on the Germanwings Airbus 320 perished in the French Alps crash.
One local said “the jet disintegrated” while Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told journalists: “It is likely there were some British on board.”
One victim was named as Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, 37, a Spanish mum who lived in Manchester. She died with her baby son Julian.
Last night, Germanwings was forced to cancel several flights after crews refused to fly for what the company said were “personal reasons.”
They confirmed that the crash plane had been grounded on Monday for an hour for repairs to be carried out.
However, a spokesman said: “The repair was purely to fix a noise that the door was making, and the aircraft was flying again from 10am on Monday.”
The debris of the doomed plane lies scattered across the side of a mountain after it mysteriously plunged from the sky.
But none of the 144 passengers – including 16 pupils and two babies – plus six crew stood a chance as the plane smashed into the French Alps at more than 400mph and broke into pieces.
As investigators prepared for the painstaking task of trying to discover how the Germanwings Airbus 320 plummeted 32,000ft in a horrifying eight minutes without sending out any mayday signals, rescuers told of the carnage that met them at the scene.
The debris was strewn across several acres of mountain in a remote area.
Flight 4U 9525 left Barcelona’s El Prat airport at 10.01am, 25 minutes late.
At 10.45, a minute after reaching its cruising height of 38,000ft over the Alps in southern France, it began to descend. Air traffic controllers lost radar contact eight minutes later at 10.53 as it ploughed into the 6,000ft mountain peak.
Aviation experts are mystified as to why the captain, who had 10 years experience, or his co-pilot failed to send out distress signals.
The jet had undergone safety checks on Monday.
Emergency crews found one black box yesterday. Officials hope it will help them piece together the final moments of the flight and find out why an aircraft with a good safety record can fall from the sky.
Most of the victims on board Flight 4U 9525 were Germans and Spaniards.
No comments:
Post a Comment