FRANCE, Recovery efforts have resumed at the site of the crash of a Germanwings Airbus A320 that went down Tuesday in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
The French interior ministry says one of the so-called “black boxes” from Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 has been recovered, although damaged, and is being analyzed in Paris for clues to the cause of the crash.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy are expected to visit the crash site on Wednesday.
The plane went down Tuesday morning without issuing any distress signals, while en route from Barcelona, Spain to the German city of Dusseldorf. The passengers are believed to have included a large number of Spanish and German citizens, as well as nationals of Turkey, the Netherlands and Australia.
Among the passengers is believed to be a pair of German opera singers and 16 German teenagers returning from a school trip.
Lufthansa, the parent company of the budget subsidiary Germanwings, says it is treating the crash as an accident at this time, and cautioned that any immediate references to possible terrorism are speculative. The White House also reported no preliminary links to terrorism.
Germanwings released a statement saying it has canceled several flights scheduled for Wednesday because of crew members requesting not to fly. The airline has also said it is “shocked and saddened” by the crash and is promising a full investigation.
About a dozen specially trained mountain police were guarding the site overnight in southeastern France, as rescue teams prepared to begin retrieving bodies at daybreak Wednesday.
Thomas Winkelmann, the airline’s managing director, said radar showed the jetliner flying at 11,500 meters before entering a deadly 8-minute descent into the Alpes de Haute-Provence region, 100 kilometers north of Nice. He said radar contact was lost at 1,800 meters, and said the jetliner underwent routine inspection in Dusseldorf on Monday.
He and others said land access to the snow covered site is virtually impossible, and that rescue personnel reached the wreckage by helicopter. Recovery efforts are expected to last at least a week.
In Washington, President Barack Obama delivered a message offering condolences to “our friends in Europe, especially the people of Germany and Spain.”
Earlier, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter-Steinmeier — who viewed the crash site by air — called the scene “a picture of horror.”
Lacking distress calls, the French aviation authority said air traffic controllers declared an emergency because they lost contact with the cockpit.
French President Francois Hollande said those killed included Germans, Spaniards and “probably” Turks. Hollande said he could not say with “total certainty” that no French nationals were aboard the flight.
“It’s a tragedy on our soil,” the French leader said.
Hollande called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to express his condolences. Her spokesman said she was “deeply shocked” by the accident and canceled all of her other appointments for the day. Merkel said she would visit the crash site on Wednesday.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a Twitter message: “Shocked by the air accident in the Alps. A tragedy. We are cooperating with the French and German authorities in the investigation.”
Germanwings is a budget airline subsidiary of the German-based airline Lufthansa. The A320 aircraft that crashed was 24 years old and was at the upper end of its normal use as a commercial airliner. It had undergone a mechanical inspection on Monday.
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