Germanwings airliner crashes in French Alps
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32030270

Thoughts with all.

Not good at all, very sad.

Sounds pretty grim, looks like whatever caused it happened pretty quickly, 9 minutes from normal flight to crash

Jeez, another AirBus down. 🙁 Hopefully not an iced sensor issue again…

Hollande is saying they there it is unlikely there will be survivors. 🙁

My wife’s flying an Airbus over the alps today 😯

Interesting, but sad data.

Tweets by planefinder

Plane took off 8.55 GMT, distress call issued 9.47GMT, looks to be way off course

Thoughts with those aboard and their families and friends, it seems there will be no survivors

Data and comments from flightradar says speed and rate of descent consistent with a normal approach for landing, also reported that an emergency call had been made

Flight radar on Twitter

Guardian News Page

Few of my colleagues possibly on that flight. Hoping they all went yesterday, checking presence info now 🙁

My wife’s flying an Airbus over the alps today

Is she well?

Is she well?

She’s in the air as I type. She was fine when she left this morning. Her flight was scheduled to leave at about 8.30am. She’s headed to Algiers so probably won’t go directly over the alps on reflection but still, flying an airbus.

looks to be way off course

Planefinder says it was following the normal route.

🙁

brassneck, hope your colleagues are safe..

Lufthansa and Germanwings have established a telephone hotline. The toll-free 0800 11 33 55 77 number is available to all the families of the passengers involved for care and assistance.

The French interior ministry have tweeted emergency numbers put in place for those close to victims. From Germany call 0800 1133 5577. From Spain dial 902 400 012.

Fingers crossed @brassneck, keep us posted.

brutal, it’s odd, I know, but I always associate plane crashes with Asia, bit close to the bone when it’s in Europe.

RIP.

I couldn’t care where a plane crashes. If it does it’s always a tragedy.
I hate flying with a passion but am in a plane at least once a month. I’ll be in a 320 Thursday. Vienna via Brussels.
I’ll just have to double dose on the diazepam to get me through it.

On some flights, before I get on I’ll make sure I’m nice to everyone I know. Make my peace with the world then as I get off I’m elated. I can’t bloody help it. My missus’s thinks I’m barking..

That’s an odd descent. As mentioned, looks consistent with a landing, not dropping like a stone, and pretty much bang on flight path. Knew they were going down so decided to keep away from built up areas?

I had the alert on my phone this morning but get a lot every day so tend to ignore them now.

Poor souls.

brutal, it’s odd, I know, but I always associate plane crashes with Asia

Anecdotally I’ve heard that there is a reason for this. It’s related to their deference to authority; you have two pilots so that one can sense check and question the other, kind of like the buddy system. If your culture strongly discourages you from questioning authority then you only have one side of that equation working.

I honestly don’t know how true this is but quite a few pilots have agreed told me this.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130709-asiana-flight-214-crash-korean-airlines-culture-outliers/

Looks my colleagues at least are OK (meeting in Monheim this morning, looks like they all got there last night for an early start) so my thoughts are with those not so lucky now.

It’s almost surreal – I’m in and out of Dusseldorf all the time, just can’t imagine hearing a disaster happening on something bound there, can’t process it.

terrible thing

the flightpath is odd – straight on course, a regular descent rate, but in the alps. if they’d turned back toward marseille there wouldn’t be any mountains to hit, it looked to be only just getting over the alps when descent began.

She’s in the air as I type. She was fine when she left this morning. Her flight was scheduled to leave at about 8.30am. She’s headed to Algiers so probably won’t go directly over the alps on reflection but still, flying an airbus.

Cool. As an aside, there aren’t many female airline pilots i wouldnt have thought.

On some flights, before I get on I’ll make sure I’m nice to everyone I know. Make my peace with the world then as I get off I’m elated. I can’t bloody help it. My missus’s thinks I’m barking..

I do exactly the same…and then this….

double dose on the diazepam to get me through it.

Hate flying, and this kind of thing does nothing to calm my fears

RIP all in involved..

When I looked a couple of months ago Lufthansa were rated as the safest airline in the world very closely followed by BA.
I shall be on an airbus tomorrow. The flight path from here in Istanbul to Dubai usually routes over Syria and Iraq. I’m rather hoping we’ll be diverting a little to the South!

does anyone know why they are called ‘german wings’, and not ‘Deutsch Flügeln’?

Cool. As an aside, there aren’t many female airline pilots i wouldnt have thought.

About 10%, there was an article on BBC News about it a few weeks back.

Nothing to add but RIP to all involved 🙁

iolo – Member
I couldn’t care where a plane crashes. If it does it’s always a tragedy.

I didn’t say that they we’re any lesser.

Party of 16 school kids and two teachers as well…

so probably won’t go directly over the alps on reflection but still, flying an airbus.

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
Terrible for the families of all those on board, until the flight data can be recovered, it’s all speculation as to the circumstances.
With modern avionics, and GPS, flying into a cloud stuffed with rocks is much less likely to happen than back in the forties, fifties and sixties; thinking of an airliner that flew into the Boisson Glacier on Mt Blanc, and another that flew into a glacier in South America, which only came to light in recent years.
Personally, I’d be much more afraid of flying over certain unstable parts of the world, politically speaking.

rate of descent consistent with a normal approach for landing,

No it isn’t.

let armchair expert battle commence

25 years an atco

About 10%, there was an article on BBC News about it a few weeks back.

We missed that, will have to look for it. Not sure why it’s so low. Ruth has never said she’s felt obstructed or prevented from pursuing her career in any way on account of her being female. Far from it. She started learning to fly at 14 and did her first solo (and thus got her PPL) when she was 17 (actually on the day of her birthday).

But as you say, it’s an aside to the tragedy. There have been a few A320s go down lately. The last one before this was Air Asia flight 8501 last December.

Flightradar shows that the route was identical to that taken by the same flight yesterday (circle is the point of the crash)

does anyone know why they are called ‘german wings’, and not ‘Deutsch Flügeln’?

English is the international Business language