PARIS (KRON) — French officials have said that no survivors were found after a Germanwings plane crashed in the French Alps.CLICK HERE FOR SLIDESHOW
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that a helicopter was able to land in the Alps, near where the plane crashed, but no survivors were found.
France’s aviation authority has determined that the crashed plane never sent out a distress signal and lost radio contact before the crash.
A German official says a high school group returning from an exchange in Spain was on board the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 people onboard.
The school they had visited, about 45 minutes from Barcelona, saids that 16 students from the town of Haltern in Germany had been on a weeklong exchange that ended Tuesday.
North Rhine-Westphalia state Education Minister Sylvia Loerhmann said Tuesday that “we know that the school group boarded the plane,” the dpa news agency reported.
Local police said they are still waiting on official confirmation the students had been killed, but have already sent staff to the school to assist students and teachers. The school refused to comment.
The Germanwings Airbus 320 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, Germany, came down in the mountains on Tuesday morning after an eight-minute descent from its cruising height.
Germanwings has said that there were 150 people on board the plane when it crashed; 144 passengers and 6 crew members.
The flight manifest is still being compiled, but Germanwings said that it included two babies.
Officials believe there were 67 German nationals on board.
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told reporters in Seville that there were 45 people aboard the plane with Spanish last names but that authorities have not confirmed how many of them were Spanish.
The weather in the area got worse as the day went on, with a chilly rain falling.
Gilbert Sauvan, of the local council, told Les Echos newspaper, “The plane is disintegrated.”
“The largest debris is the size of a car,” he added.