Germanwings A320 Crash

highlydebased

Apparently a Germanwings A320 flying Barcelona-Dusseldorf has crashed in the French Alps! Not good!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32030270?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

flanzer

Oh no. Being reported on Sky News now

Irish Steve

Sky also reporting it, but a very evident absence of specific information at the moment.

flanzer

Flight Radar saying it lost contact at 6800ft

https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/580319999887347712

Calina

Barcelonette in the Alps appears to be where they lost it.

vicwatson

French Police have confirmed the crash

"(Reuters) - An Airbus plane operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline crashed in southern France on Tuesday en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, police and aviation officials said.

The local La Provence newspaper said the Airbus A320 was carrying 142 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew, citing aviation officials.

Germanwings and Lufthansa were not immediately available for a comment. Airbus had no immediate comment."

RIP to all, and condolences to their families.

flanzer

Good link here showing it's decent.

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/d-aipx/#5d42675

RIP to all souls on board

Tabnabs

If anyone speaks French, here's the local news website for the crash area.
http://www.laprovence.com/article/actualites/3326948/un-airbus-a320-secrase-dans-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html

h3000

Tabnabs wrote: »

If anyone speaks French, here's the local news website for the crash area.
http://www.laprovence.com/article/actualites/3326948/un-airbus-a320-secrase-dans-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html

Google translate link to site
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.laprovence.com%2Farticle%2Factualites%2F3326948%2Fun-airbus-a320-secrase-dans-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html&edit-text=&act=url

Spanish Eyes

Tabnabs wrote: »

If anyone speaks French, here's the local news website for the crash area.
http://www.laprovence.com/article/actualites/3326948/un-airbus-a320-secrase-dans-les-alpes-de-haute-provence.html

That site saying 148 are dead, and the crash occurred in Trois Eveches. Quite challenging area for search and rescue I would guess. RIP to all.

https://www.google.ie/maps/place/Les+Trois+Ev%C3%AAch%C3%A9s,+04340+M%C3%A9olans-Revel,+France/@44.2884577,6.5418144,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x12cc842a92052381:0x334a7a0fa310ecb0

vicwatson

Dont mean to speculate but is the course it took a "normal" course to Dusseldorf from Barcelona?

tayto lover

Very sad. RIP to all. Hope there were no kids on it.

Gotfoodforphil

Terrible news. Average rate of descent was 3375 fpm. Reckon there was an emergency and they didn't report it? Doesn't seem fast enough for an uncontrolled descent.

lambayire

French president is saying that there are no survivors.

Awful news.

Deathwish4

Horrible news. It's been a dreadful couple of years for Aviation.

artanevilla

Quite a rapid decent with no attempt to turn back to the airport.

A Dub in Glasgo

Terrible news

eatmyshorts

vicwatson wrote: »

Dont mean to speculate but is the course it took a "normal" course to Dusseldorf from Barcelona?

It was flying the filed flight plan. A normal route

vicwatson

Gotfoodforphil wrote: »

Terrible news. Average rate of descent was 3375 fpm. Reckon there was an emergency and they didn't report it? Doesn't seem fast enough for an uncontrolled descent.

Sky News reporting a distress signal WAS sent

aliveandkicking

RIP to all involved.

cml387

Quite an old aircraft. First flight 1990.

vicwatson

eatmyshorts wrote: »

It was flying the filed flight plan. A normal route

Thanks, I was just going off a flightradar map I saw showing the "direct" route per se and the actual route it was taking over the Alps.

I'll try post it

ciarang85

RIP

vicwatson

Crash site around Digne-Les-Bains according to BBC

h3000

vicwatson wrote: »

Dont mean to speculate but is the course it took a "normal" course to Dusseldorf from Barcelona?

It seems to be the normal route for that flight alright.
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/4u9525/#5c9ef4c

Calina

vicwatson wrote: »

Sky News reporting a distress signal WAS sent

Sent at 10.47 per Europe 1.

Rasmus

How do they determine there are no survivors? Although I am sure they're quite certain if the president has announced it...

Bummer1234

Sky news say there was a distress call, Fr24 always says "Squawk 5512" throughout

artanevilla

Rasmus wrote: »

How do they determine there are no survivors? Although I am sure they're quite certain if the president has announced it...

I'd assume it's due to the terrain of the area.

Bummer1234

Must be a search heli out now

http://www.flightradar24.com/HBZAP/5d43e42

mayotom

Watching the playback on FR24 shows a decent rate of up to 3800 fpm in the minutes before impact.. really hard to tell what the reasons could be. Total Speculation but Power failure seems out as a glide to another airport would have been possible. Decent started within easy reach of airports like Nice and Toulon. Structural failure or Hijack?

vicwatson

eatmyshorts wrote: »

It was flying the filed flight plan. A normal route

Sorry, as I was saying, not trying to speculate, my original question was based on this picture

rocky911

mayotom wrote: »

Watching the playback on FR24 shows a decent rate of up to 3800 fpm in the minutes before impact.. really hard to tell what the reasons could be. Total Speculation but Power failure seems out as a glide to another airport would have been possible. Decent started within easy reach of airports like Nice and Toulon. Structural failure or Hijack?

Christ I hope its not the last one.. all in all its a sad day

vicwatson

Rasmus wrote: »

How do they determine there are no survivors? Although I am sure they're quite certain if the president has announced it...

Think he announced it's "unlikely" there are any survivors

Tabnabs

From Flightradar24

flanzer

Visited Dublin on 18th July last year

Nforce

Something appears to have happened at 9.31 UTC as this is when the aircraft begins it's decent..

pfurey101

In the meantime traffic overflies the area as normal. This is routine and no problems with it, but it must be so disturbing for these flight crews knowing that some of their own are below.

RIP ro all.

vicwatson

<SNIP>

munchkin_utd

could it be similar to this failure on a Lufthansa A321 which decided off its own bat to make a decent of 4000fpm last november.
http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilbao-on-nov-5th-2014-loss-of-4000-feet-of-altitude

only for the pilot being very experienced and know details of the planes architecture that aparantly was beyond whats normally expected, that plane would have crashed too.

pfurey101

vicwatson wrote: »

<SNIP>

Bad timing OK, but maybe the guys in the office dont have the radio on or maybe it was a preplanned email launch.

artanevilla

Seems to be a general emergency squawk code, not a hijack one.

dastardly00

Bummer1234 wrote: »

Must be a search heli out now

http://www.flightradar24.com/HBZAP/5d43e42

The heli seems to be flying a good bit south of where radar lost contact with the plane?

flanzer

dastardly00 wrote: »

The heli seems to be flying a good bit south of where radar lost contact with the plane?

Probably going to fly the route it took when it came inland off the coast

rocky911

F**k me she dropped like a rock..shocking loss.

5star02707

Terrible news also flying out next week

tmq

Nforce wrote: »

Something appears to have happened at 9.21 UTC as this is when the aircraft begins it's decent..

Do you mean 9:31? (just checking I'm reading this correctly)

wretcheddomain

What about the period from 09.17 to 09.20 - where the plane levels off somewhat before ascending further. Should the ascent be fluid to cruising altitude, or is this type of break in ascent considered routine?

artanevilla

munchkin_utd wrote: »

could it be similar to this failure on a Lufthansa A321 which decided off its own bat to make a decent of 4000fpm last november.
http://www.aeroinside.com/item/4946/lufthansa-a321-near-bilbao-on-nov-5th-2014-loss-of-4000-feet-of-altitude

only for the pilot being very experienced and know details of the planes architecture that aparantly was beyond whats normally expected, that plane would have crashed too.

If this is what happened in this case, I'd imagine all aircraft with this setup would have to be grounded.

RecordStraight

It looks like the plane descended rapidly but maintained its speed...? Is it possible the pilots didn't recognise that they were losing altitude hand over fist?

mayotom

wretcheddomain wrote: »

What about the period from 09.17 to 09.20 - where the plane levels off somewhat before ascending further. Should the ascent be fluid to cruising altitude, or is this type of break in ascent considered routine?

Thats pretty normal, they would have requested a higher altitude at that point this also corresponds with the changeover from Spanish to French Airspace