Germanwings A320 passenger plane crashes in Southern France. No survivors expected

Germanwings A320 passenger plane crashes in Southern France. No survivors expected

A Germanwings flight carrying 142 passengers and six crew from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed Tuesday in the southern French Alps, aviation authorities said. Transport officials said there were no survivors.

The low-cost airline took off from Barcelona airport at 08:55 GMT, according to Spanish Airport operator AENA.

The plane crash in the French Alps was confirmed by General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The jet crashed in the Upper Bléone Valley, Le Provence wrote. "There are no survivors" in the crash of Germanwings flight 4U9525 in the French Alps, said Alain Vidal, secretary of state for transport on Europe."There was a distress call…. This distress signal showed that the aircraft was at 1524 meters, in an abnormal situation," he said.

French President François Hollande called the crash "a tragedy on our soil'', adding that he would be speaking later in the day with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

There were no survivors from the crash, said Alain Vidalies, France's junior minister of transport.

The Germanwings Airbus A320 plane sent out a distress signal at 10:45am local time before crashing in a mountainous zone at an altitude of about 2,000 metres (6,550 feet), said French interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Brandet told BFM television that he expected the search and recovery operation to be "extremely long and extremely difficult'' due to the remoteness of the crash site.

-RT and France 24