Tragedy In French Alps

Flight 4U 9525 crashes into French Alps, leaving no survivors.

12:17 25 March 2015

150 passengers, including 16 children from the same school, were killed in an plane crash when a Germanwings plane crashed into the French Alps while on its way to Duesseldorf.

The plane's black box recorder was found and no SOS call was made.  The weather was good when the plane crashed and the White House have confirmed that terrorism is not suspected.

Germanwings has an excellent safety record and this tragedy has caused shock amongst the French, German and Spanish leaders, one of whom will be attending the site of the crash in the mountain ravine.

The recovery team will begin again at first light on Wednesday

The German Foreign Minister saw the crash site from above and said that it was a "picture of horror."

Boisse, a french tourism manager, said that she had heard a strange noise from the Alps and at first thought it may be due to an avalanche.  She soon realised that this was not the case.

The plane continued to lose altitude for 8 minutes, during which time no distress call was made.

Pilots are trained to, in an emergency situation, to fly the plane as first priority.  As soon as they gain some control, they are then to send the distress call.  As this did not happen, theories have been suggested as to what may have happened to make calling for help impossible.  Both engines may have failed, or an essential plane part may have broken away.  The actual reason is as of yet unknown.