Airplanes don't just fall out of the sky. The Germanwings Flight 9525 plane that crashed in France was at the safest part of flight. Yet, something went horribly wrong, leading to the death of 150 passengers and crew.
The first clue about what could have happened will be the wreckage itself. If the debris field is pretty compact, the plane most likely hit the mountains intact. If, it is scattered, the plane probably broke up midair.
"If you see a wing here and three miles later you see a fuselage, one doesn't have to be an expert to speculate that it didn't happen on the ground - that something happened before it impacted," says Todd Curtis, a former Boeing safety engineer who is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.
Germanwings
Flight 9525 from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany, was flown
on an Airbus A320, a workhorse of modern aviation, similar to the Boeing
737. There are over 3,600 of them in operation worldwide, according to
Airbus, which also makes nearly identical versions of the plane: The
smaller A318 and A319 and the stretched A321. An additional 2,500 of
those jets are flying.The A320 family has a good safety record, with just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, according to a Boeing safety analysis. This particular jet was delivered to Lufthansa - the parent company of Germanwings - in 1991 and had about 58,300 flight hours over 46,700 flights.
It is way too early to know for sure what happened, but here are some options.
Rapid decompression
This jet averaged more than 5.3 flights a day over its 24 years. That isn't unusual for a plane making short trips around Europe but is on the higher end of what is normal.Each takeoff and landing cycle and the pressurization and depressurization associated with it adds stress to the skin of the plane. Aircraft that fly short, frequent routes go through more of these cycles than planes flying long distances. In 1988, a 19-year-old Aloha Airlines Boeing 737-200 that had made frequent, short hops among the Hawaiian islands lost a large part of its roof. Corrosion and metal fatigue were to blame.
Flight 9525 reportedly descended at 3,000 feet per minute from its cruising altitude of 38,000, twice the normal speed of a descent.
If there was some type of rapid decompression - whether from metal fatigue or a bomb - the pilots' first move would be to get the plane down below 10,000 feet, where the air is breathable. The masks that come down from the overhead bins provide about 10 minutes worth of oxygen. So, a decent rate of 3,000 feet per minute would get the plane down to breathable air just in time.
Curtis says that initial rate of decent is consistent with what you would see in a decompression situation.
Technical error
Airbus jets have one of the most sophisticated cockpits. However, there have been issues in the past with some of the instruments there. The 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 started because pilots were getting false air speed indications as it flew through a storm. Ultimately, pilot error led the plane into a stall but only after they were getting bad data.More recently, a Lufthansa A321 - the slightly larger version of the A320 - dropped about 4,000 feet in one minute after the autopilot unexpectedly lowered the jet's nose. Following the November incident, the European Aviation Safety Agency issued a safety directive warning pilots about the possibility of an error with the angle of attack sensors on the plane.
Pulling up on the jet's sidestick - a device similar to a yoke - would not pull the jet out of the dive. The safety agency noted the only way to stop it was to turn off two of the three air data reference units in the cockpit. These units process the flight speed, up or down angle of the nose, and the altitude.
Terrorism
There is no indication that this crash is tied to any criminal act but such actions can't yet be ruled out.Pilot error
The pilots might have somehow accidently put the plane into a dive or stall and not be able to recover from it. Separately, the pilots could have been so focused on getting the plane below 10,000 feet that they didn't realise how close they were to the mountains until it was too late.Just read what happened earlier below...
German airliner has crashed near a ski resort in the French Alps with all 148 people on board feared dead. French President Francois Hollande says it is likely all passengers and crew on the Airbus A320 have perished.
"There are not thought to be any survivors," the president told reporters after the disaster on Tuesday.
The plane was travelling from the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona to the German city of Duesseldorf when it went down in the Barcelonnette area, in southeastern France.
The plane issued a distress call at 10.47am, sources said.
The airliner was carrying 142 passengers and six crew members.
The plane belonged to Germanwings, a low-cost affiliate of German airline Lufthansa. The single-aisle A320 typically seats 150 to 180 people.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who said debris from the plane had already been found, was heading to the scene.
Shares in Airbus, the European aerospace giant, slumped on news of the accident, down 1.77 per cent to 58.94 euros after briefly sliding two per cent.
The Airbus plane operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline
carrying 144 passengers and 6 crew crashed in southern France this
morning. The airbus A320 was flying from Barcelona, Spain to
Duesseldorf, Germany when it disappeared from radar in the Alpes de
Hautes Provence after sending a distress signal at
10.47am local time.
The plane was travelling from the Spanish coastal city of Barcelona to the German city of Duesseldorf when it went down in the Barcelonnette area, in southeastern France.
The plane issued a distress call at 10.47am, sources said.
The airliner was carrying 142 passengers and six crew members.
The plane belonged to Germanwings, a low-cost affiliate of German airline Lufthansa. The single-aisle A320 typically seats 150 to 180 people.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, who said debris from the plane had already been found, was heading to the scene.
Shares in Airbus, the European aerospace giant, slumped on news of the accident, down 1.77 per cent to 58.94 euros after briefly sliding two per cent.
Everyone on board is feared dead after debris from the plane was found scattered over a wild area near Barcelonnette hours later. The cause of the crash is not yet known.
Lufthansa officials said in the wake of Tuesday's crash, seven flights were canceled because crew members were "unfit to fly."
"We had to cancel seven Germanwings flights departing from Duesseldorf today because of difficulties with crew members," a Lufthansa spokesperson told the BBC. "They told us they felt unfit to fly."
Until Tuesday, Germanwings had recorded no fatal accidents involving passenger deaths. The carrier, a low-cost unit of Lufthansa, was founded in 2002.
The plane disappeared from radar in the Alpes de Hautes Provence (above) in
the southern French Alps.
He said there was likely to be a significant number of Germans on the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
He added: "The accident happened in a zone that is particularly hard to access. I
am seeking information about homes in the area it came down. It's
difficult place to access. In the meantime solidarity must prevail.'
A black box has been found at the plane crash site in the French Alps, according to the French interior minister.
The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost radio contact, France's aviation authority said, deepening the mystery over the A320's mid-flight crash after an 8-minute surprise steep descent as it flew from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
"We still don't know much beyond the bare information on the flight, and there should be no speculation on the cause of the crash," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin. "All that will be investigated thoroughly."
In Washington, the White House said American officials were in contact with their French, Spanish and German counterparts.
"There is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time," said U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.
Early information suggests no New Zealanders were on a plane, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A Ministry of Foreign Affaris (MFAT) spokesman said officials have been seeking information from the relevant authorities about the plane crash.
"At this stage there are no indications of New Zealand passport holders being passengers on the flight," the MFAT spokesman said.
MFAT would be monitoring the situation and seeking further updates.
"Everything is pulverized. The largest pieces of debris is the size of a small car. No one can access the site from the ground," Gilbert Sauvan, lawmaker and president of the general council, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told The Associated Press.
Germanwings said Flight 9525 carried 144 passengers, including two babies, and six crew members. Officials believe 67 German nationals were on board, including 16 high school students on an exchange program from the German town of Haltern. Dutch officials said one Dutch citizen was killed.
The plane left Barcelona Airport at 10:01 a.m., then began descending again shortly after it reached its cruising height of 38,000 feet, Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann said. The descent lasted eight minutes, he told reporters in Cologne.
Eric Heraud of the French Civil Aviation Authority said the plane lost radio contact at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, but "never declared a distress alert itself." He said the combination of loss of radio contract with a control center and the plane's quick descent prompted the control service to declare a distress situation.
"It was a deafening noise. I thought it was an avalanche, although it sounded slightly different. It was short noise and lasted just a few seconds," Sandrine Boisse, the president of the Pra Loup tourism office, told The Associated Press.
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told BFM television he expected "an extremely long and extremely difficult" search-and-rescue operation because of the area's remoteness. The weather in the area deteriorated Tuesday afternoon, with a chilly rain falling.
Winkelmann said the pilot, whom he did not name, had more than 10 years' experience working for Germanwings and its parent airline Lufthansa. Airbus said the A320 involved in the crash was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991.
"We cannot say at the moment why our colleague went into the descent, and so quickly and without previously consulting air traffic control," said Germanwings' director of flight operations, Stefan-Kenan Scheib.
The aircraft was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991, had approximately 58,300 flight hours in some 46,700 flights, Airbus said. The plane last underwent a routine check in Duesseldorf on Monday, and its last regular full check took place in the summer of 2013.
The Germanwings logo, normally maroon and yellow, was blacked out on its Twitter feed.
The owner of a campground near the crash site, Pierre Polizzi, said he heard the plane making curious noises shortly before it crashed.
"At 11.30, I heard a series of loud noises in the air. There are often fighter jets flying over, so I thought it sounded just like that. I looked outside, but I couldn't see any fighter planes," he told the AP. "The noise I heard was long " like 8 seconds " as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane. There was another long noise after about 30 seconds."
Polizzi said the plane crashed about 5-to-8 kilometers (3-to-11 miles) from his place, which is closed for the season.
"It's going to be very difficult to get there. The mountain is snowy and very hostile," he said.
The municipal sports hall of Seyne-les-Alpes, 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Val d'Allos ski resort, was being set up to take bodies from the crash.
The safest part of a flight is normally when the plane is at cruising elevation. Just 10 percent of fatal accidents occur at that point, according to a safety analysis by Boeing. In contrast, takeoff and the initial climb accounts for 14 percent of crashes and final approach and landing accounts for 47 percent.
In a live briefing in Paris, French President Francois Hollande called the crash "a tragedy on our soil."
The last time a passenger jet crashed in France was the 2000 Concorde accident, which left 113 dead " 109 in the plane and four on the ground.
"The crash of the German plane with more than 140 people on board is a shock that plunges us in Germany, the French and the Spanish into deep sorrow," said Merkel, who planned to travel to the region Wednesday.
The A320 plane is a workhorse of modern aviation. The single-aisle, twin-engine jet is used to connect cities between one and five hours apart. The A320 is certified to fly up to 39,000 feet but it can begin to experience problems as low as 37,000 feet, depending on temperature and weight, including fuel, cargo and passengers.
Worldwide, 3,606 A320s are in operation, according to Airbus.
The A320 family also has a good safety record, with just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, according to a Boeing safety analysis.
