OH my GOD. A dark day for Lufthansa, Airbus A320 crash

                                        

Two leading opera singers have been named as two of the 144 passengers who lost their lives when Germanwings Flight 9525 ploughed into an Alpine mountainside at more than 400mph. See the Pictures of the two opera singers after the jump

  

Pictures of contralto Maria Radner and bass baritone Oleg Bryjak, from Kazakhstan, emerged hours after rescue helicopters arrived at the remote crash site to find wreckage from the obliterated plane scattered across hundreds of metres, with no pieces of debris larger than a small car.

   

Christian Vigne, a member of the first helicopter crew to arrive at the scene said the plane had 'completely disintegrated' and added bodies were 'strewn over an area of some 400 square metres'.

One of the plane's black box recorders, which could hold the key to what happened, has been found and will be examined immediately, France's interior minister said. 

Sixteen German schoolchildren from the same class, six crew and two babies, including Ms Radner's young child, also died when the Airbus A320 crashed in a remote region of the French Alps en route from Spain to Germany.

Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, a 37-year-old Spanish woman believed to be living in Manchester, and an unnamed father of four are also understood to be among the victims. 

Images of the crash site emerged as confusion reigned over the final minutes of the doomed Airbus A320 after air traffic controllers claimed they received no SOS despite the jet nosediving 32,000ft in just eight minutes.

Earlier reports quoted aviation sources in France as saying the pilots issued a Mayday distress signal and requested an emergency descent minutes before it hit the ground. 

However, civil aviation authorities later denied that air traffic controllers received any such call. 

'The aircraft did not itself make a distress call, but it was the combination of the loss of radio contact and the aircraft's descent which led the controller to implement the distress phase,' a spokesman for the French civil aviation authority said.

Germanwings chief executive Thomas Winkelmann said the aircraft began descending at 10.45am, a minute after reaching cruising height of 38,000ft. 

This descent lasted eight minutes, he told reporters in Cologne. Radar and air traffic control contact broke off at 10.53am when it is understood to have crashed at more than 400mph.

Germanwings said it was thought that 63 of the passengers on board were Germans, while reports from Spain suggest that around 45 Spaniards may have been on the flight. 

Two leading opera singers, Contralto Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak from Kazakhstan, were among those who lost their lives in the crash. 

Ms Radner, who performed all over the world including the Metropolitan Opera in New York and theatres in Milan and Buenos Aires, was on the plane with her husband and baby. She had just finished performing in the Richard Wagner opera Siegfried at Barcelona’s Liceu.

It was also reported that Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, from the Pyrenees city of Jaca in Huesca, was travelling with her seven month-old baby and Polish husband. A local newspaper reported the 37-year-old lived in Manchester but had returned to Spain for her uncle's funeral. 

Sources close to the Spaniard said she had decided to return via Germany after being unable to get a direct flight. 

Two Australians were among those who died. They were a Victorian mother and her adult son, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said. Officials are now seeking to confirm whether there were any other Australians or dual citizens on board.  

A schoolgirl, her mother and grandmother, and an unnamed father of four, are also understood to have died in the crash.

The search of the plane crash site was called off for the night after conditions became too difficult and will resume tomorrow morning, French authorities said.

 

'It is possible that the pilots sent a distress signal that was not received by Air Traffic Control. A thorough examination of the recorders will help provide a precise sequence of events.' 

Experts said that while the Airbus had descended sharply, its rate of descent did not suggest it had simply fallen out of the sky, prompting speculation that the pilots may have suddenly fallen unconscious. 

Grieving families, including those of the 16 schoolchildren killed in the crash, have been gathering at Dusseldorf airport in Germany, where the jet was due to land, to await news of the rescue and recovery operation. 

The first victim to be named was opera singer Oleg Bryjak, whose colleagues at The Deutsche Oper am Rhein, in Dusseldorf, paid tribute to a 'great performer and a great person'. 

The opera house said Mr Bryjak was on his way back from Barcelona, where he had sung Alberich in Richard Wagner's Siegfried at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. 

Director Christoph Meyer said: 'We have lost a great performer and a great person in Oleg Bryjak. We are stunned.'

 

French president Francois Hollande said he did not expect there to be any survivors. 

He said: 'It's a loss, a tragedy which has happened on our soil. 

'I am seeking information about homes in the area it came down. It's difficult place to access. In the meantime solidarity must prevail.' 

He said he believes most of the passengers were German, Spanish and Turkish. 

Speaking tonight, President Obama said his thoughts were with the families of those killed in the crash. He added that he had spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and planned to call Spanish President Mariano Rajoy later in the day.

According to flight data from FlightAware 24, the aircraft was cruising at 38,000 feet at 532mph at 9.30am local time (10.30am GMT). 

It started losing altitude to 37,975 by 10.31am with the speed reportedly increasing to 548mph.

 

But 10.41am, the last reported radar returns had the aircraft descending to 6,800 feet at 434mph. 

The aircraft took around ten minutes to drop 31,200 feet.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, with weather conditions described as good in the region and the airliner flying at an altitude high above the Alps. 

The area is inaccessible for vehicles but helicopters are able to deposit vehicles at the site. 

About 150 firefighters and mountain police are being deployed to the scene, including 40 officers from Grimp – a unit within the Fire Service that specializes in rescue operations in dangerous and inhospitable environments. 

Fifty vehicles, including 4x4s, quads and ambulances, are also being deployed. Dog teams will also investigate at the scene.  

It emerged today that a safety warning was issued last year when a sister plane of the one involved in today's disaster suddenly lost altitude.

The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive after an Airbus A321 went into an uncontrollable dive north of Pamplona, Spain before pulling out. 

 

According to the safety warning, the Lufthansa jet, with 109 passengers and crew aboard, was at 31,000 feet when it started to descend without any input from the pilot, at a rate of 4,000 feet per minute, before the flight crew managed to regain control at 28,000 feet.

According to the EASA, a safety system designed to protect the jet reacted to incorrect data due to a faulty sensor.   

The safety warning related to all Airbus A318, A319, A320 and A321 – including the Airbus A320 involved in today's disast

I Cant stop crying, i don't know anyone involved in the crash but we can agree that this is sad. Our thoughts and prayers are with families of the departed. RIP...