Rescue teams near Airbus A320 plane crash in Southern France

13:43 GMT:The Spanish media is reporting that a group of 20 German schoolchildren who were on an exchange trip are amongst the dead.
13:36 GMT:

The A320 plane is known as the ‘workhorse’ within the aviation industry.

It is a single-aisle narrow body jet and is used for short and medium haul flights.

As of November 2014, a total of 11,163 planes had been ordered, with 6.331 delivered. The aircraft’s first flight was on 1987.


The Germanwings plane, which crashed in the French Alps had been in service since 1991.
13:36 GMT:

German chancellor Angela Merkel says she will try and visit the crash site tomorrow. The German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt and a number of air safety experts are already on their way.
13:30 GMT:

Just to re-cap a few of the details from the Germanwings plane crash.

Germanwings have confirmed 150 people were on board the flight, which included 144 passengers, two pilots and four crew.

The aircraft, which took off from Barcelona airport and was heading towards Dusseldorf, issued a distress signal at 09.47.
13:26 GMT:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed condolences to German Chancellor Angela Merkel following the crash of the Germanwings Airbus A320 plane. German citizens are believed to have made up the majority of the passengers on the jet.
13:16 GMT:

The aviation website AirLive has produced a graphic showing how the A320 Airbus descended as it approached the French Alps en route to Dusseldorf.

13:12 GMT:The owner of a camp site in the French Alps near the scene of the crash says he heard a series of loud noises coming from the air before the Germanwings A320 Airbus crashed. Pierre Polizzi told AP the noise began at 11:30 local time.

"There are often fighter jets flying over, so I thought it sounded just like that. I looked outside but I couldn't see any fighter planes."

"The noise I heard was long - like 8 seconds - as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane speed. There was another long noise about 30 seconds later."

Polizzi said it would be difficult to get to the site of the crash. "The mountain is snowy and very hostile."
12:59 GMT:

The managing director of Germanwings, Oliver Wagner said he was unable to shed any light onto what may have caused the plane crash. However, he added that the company, which is a subsidiary of Lufthansa, will do everything to find out what happened.

"Our deep sympathy goes out to the relatives and friends of the victims," Wagner said.
12:57 GMT:

French President Francois Hollande says he does not believe that there were any French nationals on the plane, though he has said that he can’t say this with one hundred percent certainty.

Meanwhile, King Filipe VI of Spain, who was on a state visit to France, says he will return home following the tragedy.
12:52 GMT:

This a picture taken from a helicopter near the crash site, where the Germanwings plane went down.

Source: rt.com