History: Germanwings Flight 9525

On the 24th of March 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525? (4U9525) operated by Germanwings with an Airbus A320 registration D-AIPX crashed in the South of France near Digne-les-Bains while en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. The flight was carrying 142 passengers, two pilots and four cabin crew.

Aircraft

The aircraft involved in the accident was an Airbus A320-200 registered D-AIPX. The plane had its maiden flight on 29 November 1990 and was delivered to Lufthansa in February 1991. It first appeared in the Germanwings fleet in 2003 being later returned to Lufthansa. In January 2014 upon the relaunch of Germanwings the plane was sold by Lufthansa to Germanwings.

Background

Germanwings Flight 9525 took off from Barcelona El Prat Airport at 8.55 GMT according to Aena the operator of the airport. It was due to arrive in Düsseldorf at 11.55 CET.

Accident

The DGAC (French civil aviation authority) has released information that there was an emergency call from the crew before the aircraft disappearing from radar near Bassinet.

Available radar data suggests that the aircraft had reached FL380 and then 3 minutes later started descending from FL380 through FL110 in about 8 minutes (with an average rate of descent 3375 fpm). Later the aircraft has appeared to have leveled off at FL068 for one minute while on a northeasterly heading of 26 degrees true.

Response

French President François Hollande publicly issued a statement saying: "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors." He then called the crash a tragedy and called for solidarity. The Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls said that he had dispatched the Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to the accident scene and set-up a ministerial crisis cell to co-ordinate the incident.

Search and recovery

Immediately after the crash a search and rescue operation was initiated. Two helicopters of the french police have identified the location of the aircraft debris at an altitude of about 2000 m in the mountains.

Passengers and crew

Investigation

Conclusions

Aftermath

Further reading

List of accidents involving an Airbus A320
Aircraft disasters