News has unfortunately hit this morning that a Germanwings Airbus A320 traveling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf (flight 9525), has crashed in southeastern France, near Digne les Bains.
Continue reading: Germanwings Plane Crashes — 148 Feared Dead
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Really sad news. Lucky call your mom and say hi. My first reaction was sh*t where's Lucky and I quickly went to your site to make sure your were not anywhere near this.
:-(....that's really sad.
I was really looking forward to my first and last USDM award next week...now, I don't know...
This is terrible. Keeping the families of those involved in my thoughts and prayers.
I dare say that Airbus may still have some issues to work out on their A320s and A330s. Dropping out of the sky mid flight isn't normal. Only 14% of the time do catastrophes happen mid flight.
The last comments in the French news say that there is 150 dead people (144 passenger included 2 babies, 15 teenagers and 6 crews), no one survived the crash as the plane is totally destroyed. About the passenger not much is revealed but the passenger list include 45 Spanish and 69 Germans... 🙁
The plane didn't send any emergency signal it's the airport that sent an emergency signal when they lost contact with the plane. The plan was flying at 38000 feet and drop to 6000 feet in 8 minutes. There is no explanation yet...
I forgot to mention that the plane was 24 years old and it was his last year on commercial flight... No technical problems whatsoever were found on the plane before his departure...
Flightradar24 track of the flight
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/4u9525/#5d42675
From the the Flightradar24 website it seems it started to lose altitude as the flight came into France east of Marseille from the Med and continued on straight course until they hit the Alps.
Pictures of the accident site, plane is in tiny bits.
http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-provence/2015/03/24/un-a320-s-ecrase-dans-la-zone-de-barcelonnette
Truly sad. Please say a prayer for the friends and family involved. The sudden loss of a loved one, especially in the immediate weeks/months afterwards, is extremely difficult.
As to what happened, difficult to say at this point. Does anyone have WX conditions at time of the crash? The only mid-air issues I'm aware of on A320s were the pitot tubes freezing up, but that was addressed after AF447.
And even though it's not much comfort when you see stories like this, air travel is still far safer than any other form of transport. Even on 9/11, it was still safer to be flying than driving.
Nothing sadder than seeing a Flightaware track just stopping (and saying result unknown) 🙁
Keeping those involved in my thoughts.
How very sad, my heart felt condolences to the families and friends of the passengers and crew in the event there are no survivors.
It looks like this aircraft, DAIPX, was a little workhorse around Germany, Switzerland, and Austria with an occasional hop to LHR. 6 flights per day on some days. And then it was called into service for the BCN/DUS route. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAIPX/history No Name, the flight tracking is chilling. It wasn't at 38000 feet for very long. I feel sick for the loved ones of the victims.
Awww, I'm seeing RIPs for the aircraft in addition to the victims. Aircraft fans are a special bunch of people. (I write that with all sincerity, zero snark.)
Not good, seem like one of the pilots was locked out of the cockpit and was heard banging/smashing on the door on the way down.
Over on PPRUNE the debate seems to be whether it was a medical emergency or murder-suicide, the murder-suicide side to be the strongest.
My guess is that the plane was up for a d-check soon (due to it's age) and LH/Germanwings was trying to use up any remaining cycles before scraping her hence the many short flights. Since cycles, landings and age is 3 factors that drives maintenance on planes.
And yes any track that ends like that is scary as hell.