Germanwings A320 crashed in France :(

[JustinF]

Le TVR said:

Boydie88 said:

There was a distress call, wasn't there?

DGAC says no. It was an ATC generated alert.

Gendarmerie helicopters who located the crash site talked of debris and bodies on the mountainside. Quickly followed by the ministerial comment that survivors were extremely unlikely.

There was indeed a distress call at 10:47

[Driller]

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any communication.

ETA Apparently there was a mayday just before this but no comms during the descent

(Reposted because of iPad triple post bullst)

[croyde]

How awful

[Driller]

Silver993tt said:

Driller said:

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any mayday call.

"According to sources quoted by AFP news agency. plane had issued a distress call at 10:47 (09:47 GMT)."

IPad giving me grief.

Driller said:

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any communication.

ETA Apparently there was a mayday just before this but no comms during the descent

(Reposted because of iPad triple post bullst)

[hornetrider]

airbusA346 said:

From Airlive.net Twitter

"Here is a photo from helicopter of the crash area /France2 journalists"

What a nightmare for access.

[airbusA346]

Germanwings now saying 144 passengers and 6 crew onboard.

[///ajd]

Asterix said:

http://avherald.com/h?article=483a5651&opt=0

Interesting info here - apparently it leveled out at 6,800ft for a minute then hit mountains.

It looks that way.

It could be some kind of o2/pressurisation problem and whilst focussed on getting below 10kft for the pax breathing, they did not manage terrain. But it might not, as that seems too simple. Too early to say.

[Big Rod]

.

[Le TVR]

Driller said:

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any communication.)

Exactly what I heard, they spoke of a DETRESFA alert which I understood to be an ATC generated one?

[bitchstewie]

Only thing that I would say is that from watching a lot of Aircrash Investigation type stuff on TV, and I'm being very careful not to sound like an armchair detective, I don't recall too many planes flying seemingly straight and simply doing a very long straight "glide" into a mountain without a mayday or anything at all.

Horrible and thankfully seems very rare.

[Boydie88]

Ah Ok.

Loss of cabin pressure knocking the pilots unconscious?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight...

Although no idea how it could have entered the descent.

[JRM]

Gandahar said:

Interesting descent profile. Not a dive but not a normal descent. Plane did not deviate from the flight path.

Yes, that's what I thought, a 10 minute decent from a steady 38000ft, maybe a glide, but they maintained airspeed and didn't speed up

[Gandahar]

JRM said:

Gandahar said:

Interesting descent profile. Not a dive but not a normal descent. Plane did not deviate from the flight path.

Yes, that's what I thought, a 10 minute decent from a steady 38000ft, maybe a glide, but they maintained airspeed and didn't speed up

As it seems no ATC contact during the descent, only before, the black boxes will be the solution. If intact there will be no mystery here.

Sad day for the families, with that route it is likely coming back from a holiday or short break.

[Shotgun Jon]

Aviate, navigate, communicate.

Seems they never got past the first one. RIP.

[Asterix]

hornetrider said:

airbusA346 said:

From Airlive.net Twitter

"Here is a photo from helicopter of the crash area /France2 journalists"

What a nightmare for access.

Yeah, that's a brutal environment to work in - that said, the mountain emergency guys in France, and the rest of the Alps, are extremely well trained and drilled so if there was the remotest hope of survivors then they'll be all over it.

Sadly, it just looks like it will be a stty place to work in. The smallest of mercies is that it should be easy enough to locate the flight recorders so at least closure for the poor relatives should be swift.

[MitchT]

JRM said:

Gandahar said:

Interesting descent profile. Not a dive but not a normal descent. Plane did not deviate from the flight path.

Yes, that's what I thought, a 10 minute decent from a steady 38000ft, maybe a glide, but they maintained airspeed and didn't speed up

Given the point at which the descent started, and how long it took, they could have made Marseille or even Nice had they had a terminal problem and were aware of it. The fact that they continued in their established direction is somewhat curious.

RIP.

[onyx39]

Driller said:

Silver993tt said:

Driller said:

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any mayday call.

"According to sources quoted by AFP news agency. plane had issued a distress call at 10:47 (09:47 GMT)."

IPad giving me grief.

Driller said:

Colleagues of my wife who works at Paris Control say their colleagues at Aix-en-Provence ( the control centre in question) have said the aircraft descended from FL380 to FL60 without any communication.

ETA Apparently there was a mayday just before this but no comms during the descent

(Reposted because of iPad triple post bullst)

Too busy in the cockpit trying to fix stuff?

[JRM]

MitchT said:

JRM said:

Gandahar said:

Interesting descent profile. Not a dive but not a normal descent. Plane did not deviate from the flight path.

Yes, that's what I thought, a 10 minute decent from a steady 38000ft, maybe a glide, but they maintained airspeed and didn't speed up

Given the point at which the descent started, and how long it took, they could have made Marseille or even Nice had they had a terminal problem and were aware of it. The fact that they continued in their established direction is somewhat curious.

RIP.

That's a good point, odd that they maintained their flight path isn't it. Unless it was decompression, but you'd assume autopilot would have been on to maintained altitude - unless fuel failure too????

[Stevanos]

MitchT said:

Given the point at which the descent started, and how long it took, they could have made Marseille or even Nice had they had a terminal problem and were aware of it. The fact that they continued in their established direction is somewhat curious.

RIP.

This was what I was thinking, they seem to have just cruised in to the side of a mountain without any real directional deviation, just the descent.

[MikeyC]

terrible news

looking at the graph posted of speed/altitude, looks almost as if it levelled out @ 30,000ft, but then started going higher, reaching ~39,000ft which is near to the aircrafts ceiling according to this