Two Australians dead in French plane crash
Two Australians were among those who died when a plane operated by the budget carrier of Germany’s Lufthansa crashed in the French Alps.
They were a Victorian mother and her adult son, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.
The Federal Government is seeking to confirm whether any other Australians or dual citizens were on board.
The Germanwings plane crashed in a remote area of the French Alps, killing all 150 on board in the worst plane disaster in mainland France for four decades.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the thoughts and prayers of all Australians were with the family and friends of the victims.
“But particularly with the loved ones of the two Australians who have lost their lives,” he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
Bishop said authorities were seeking to confirm whether any other Australians or dual citizens were aboard the plane.
The family of the Australian victims has been contacted.
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“I don’t think it gets any easier announcing the death of Australian citizens in a tragedy overseas,” Bishop told reporters.
Australia’s ambassador to France Stephen Brady is in contact with local authorities to discuss the retrieval arrangements.
Australian consular officials are travelling to the town of Gap where they will liaise with French authorities on the recovery effort.
Bishop said it would be premature to speculate about the cause of the crash but said German airline Lufthansa, which owns the budget carrier Germanwings, was working on the assumption it was an accident.
Germanwings said the Airbus A320 plunged for eight minutes into an inaccessible mountain area in southeastern France, but French officials said no distress signal had been issued.
The plane, carrying 144 mainly Spanish and German passengers and six crew, was travelling from Barcelona to the western German city of Duesseldorf on Tuesday when it came down near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said there were no survivors, adding that the authorities “can’t rule out any theory” on the cause of the disaster.
Spanish authorities said 16 German teenagers on a school trip were feared to be on board the doomed plane, as tearful relatives converged on the airports in the two cities anxiously seeking information about their loved ones.
It was the first fatal accident in the history of Germanwings, and the deadliest on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines crashed, killing 346 people.
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“It is a tragedy, a new airline tragedy, we will determine what caused the crash,” French President Francois Hollande said.
Hollande said the dead included Germans, Spaniards and “probably” Turks, while Belgium said at least one of its nationals was on board.
Germanwings said 67 Germans were believed to have been on board while Spain said 45 people with Spanish sounding names were on the flight.
A crisis cell has been set up in the area between Barcelonette and Digne-les-Bains along with an emergency flight control centre to coordinate the operation to the crash site.
“Ground access is horrible, I know the Estrop massif, it’s a very high mountainous area, very steep and it’s terrible to get there except from the air during winter,” local resident Francoise Pie said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “shocked” by news of the accident and would immediately travel to the crash site, while Spanish King Felipe VI cut short his state visit to France after news of the tragedy.
The plane belonged to Germanwings, a low-cost affiliate of German flag carrier Lufthansa based in Cologne.
“We’ve never had a total loss of aircraft in the company’s history until now,” a company spokeswoman said.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr described it as a “dark day”.
A spokesman for Airbus, the European aerospace giant, did not give any information about possible causes but said the company had opened a “crisis cell”.
French civil aviation authorities said they lost contact with the plane and declared it was in distress on Tuesday morning.
However, the aircraft’s crew did not send a distress signal, civil aviation authorities told AFP.
“The crew did not send a Mayday. It was air traffic control that decided to declare the plane was in distress because there was no contact with the crew of the plane,” the source said.
Shares in Airbus and Lufthansa were both down after the tragedy.
– AFP/AAP
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