Germanwings A320 French Alps crash live updates: Flight 4U9525 black box damaged as recovery operation resumes

That is all for today. Here is a round-up of the latest developments:

• The black box recorder is damaged but some "usable data" has been retrieved. Search continues for the second black box. A case has been found, but not the recorder itself.
• German, French and Spanish leaders have visited the crash site area, spoke to rescue workers and held a press conference.
• At least three British nationals have died in the incident

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki has confirmed the death of the two American victims in the plane crash:

We are deeply saddened by the news that Germanwings flight 9525 crashed in southern France on its way from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany.

We are in contact with family members and we extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the 150 people on board.

We are continuing to review our records to determine whether any other US citizens might have been on board the flight.

We are not releasing the names at this time out of respect for the family.

BEA investigator says that the last message from the pilot was a routine message to ATC about the route. One minute after that, the flight started to drop.

It continued to drop for about 10 minutes until it impacted on the ground at high speed. The voice recorder was located yesterday at 5pm.

The French investigator also said that some data has been retrieved from the first Germanwings black blox.

He also said that investigators "do not have the slightest explanation for the crash" at this stage.

BEA investigator says that the last message from the pilot was a routine message to ATC about the route. One minute after that, the flight started to drop.

It continued to drop for about 10 minutes until it impacted on the ground at high speed. The voice recorder was located yesterday at 5pm.

The French investigator also said that some data has been retrieved from the first Germanwings black blox.

French investigators (BEA) said that they successfully extracted recordings from the cockpit voice.

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy "We will be together in such a complicated moment like this"

Merkel's turn to speak:

"We are united by the same grief. It is a real tragedy, today we have seen the extent of that tragedy"

Hollande: "Everything will be done so that we can find, identify and give back the bodies to the families of the victims.

"This was a great show of solidarity but unfortunately there were no survivors."

"Black box has been recovered and analysed. Search is going on for the second black box. Case has been found, but unfortunately not the black box itself. "

"Human solidarity: it exists, it is here," he said.

Hollande, Merkel and Rajoy are holding a joint press conference near the crash site:

Spain's government has raised the number of Spanish victims in the crash from 49 to at least 51

The second black box has been found, according to the aviation site AirLive.net:

Barcelona's Liceu opera house has planned to observe two-minute silence for the opera singers lost in the crash: Oleg Bryjak, bass baritone, and Maria Radner, a contralto. The two had performed there in Wagner's "Siegfried" according to the New York Times.

Kazakhstan-born Bryjak, 54, had been a member of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, based in Dusseldorf and Dusiburg, since the 1996-7 season.

Radner's husband and baby were also on the plane. The contralto was a rising star of Wagnerian opera.

The Foreign Office has released a statement by Pawel Pracz, wife of marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, 37, and father of Julian Pracz-Bandres, only seven months old. Both mother and baby have died in the air crash:

My wife Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio and our son Julian Pracz-Bandres were on-board the plane that crashed in the Alps yesterday. We have been living in Manchester for 7 years.

Marina was an editor and colourist, and we were both working in post-production for film and video. Marina was visiting her family in Spain for her uncle's funeral, she bought the tickets at the last moment, and decided to return to Manchester quickly as she wanted to return to her daily routine as soon as possible. I'm with my closest family in Manchester, and in close contact with our family in Spain at this very difficult time. We are devastated and would like to request that we be allowed to grieve in peace as a family without intrusion at this difficult time.

Hollande, Merkel and Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy are speaking to press and rescue workers at crash site.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande have arrived at the site of the crash.

France's Interior Ministry has released new photo of the crash site. You can view them in high definition clicking on the Flickr link included in the tweet.

Players of German football team Bayern Munich have observed a minute of silence before their daily training session.

Spanish authorities have opened an investigation into offensive messages against the victims of the disaster posted on social media, Le Figaro reports.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr has issued a video message on the crash.

France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA) has released photos of the recovered black box cockpit voice recorder. The device was damaged in the crash but is said to be still "usable".

National flags are flying at half-mast in Madrid and Berlin.

There seems to be some confusion regarding the nationalities of the victims.

Minutes ago Spain's government says it has identified 49 of its nationals who died in the crash, adding that the figure was provisional and could change.

Now AP quotes Germanwings CEO as saying that the plane victims include 35 Spaniards, 72 German citizens and 2 Americans.

It is possible that some passengers were holders of dual nationality.

Spain confirms 49 of its nationals died in the crash.

Meanwhile France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius tells BFMTV that, according to information available, Argentinians, Belgians and Moroccan nationals are also among the victims.

Here is an updated list of the nationalities of the victims, as Germanwings has not yet issued a complete passenger list.

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere says: "according to the latest information there is no hard evidence that the crash was intentionally brought about by third parties."

Germanwings parent company Lufthansa tweets:

Britain's foreign secretary Philip Hammond says the government believes at least three Britons have died in the plane crash.

Hammond says:

This is a tragic incident for those involved and their families, I send my deepest condolences to those who have lost family or friends.

I don't want to speculate on numbers of British nationals involved until we have completed our checks on all the passenger information. However, based on the information available to us, it is sadly likely that there were some British nationals on board the flight. We are providing consular assistance and will give further help as more information becomes available. We are working closely with the French, German and Spanish authorities, and the airline, to establish the facts.

The UK Air Accident Investigation Branch, and UK Disaster Victim Identification experts, are also standing by to offer assistance to the French authorities, if required.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry says three of its nationals are among the victims.

As Germanwings has not yet issued a complete list of the nationalities of the 150 people aboard, here is a summary of what is known so far by AP:

Eyal Baum, a 39-year-old Israeli national, has been identified as one of the victims.

AP reports:

An Israeli citizen who lived in Spain was among the victims of the French plane crash, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Eyal Baum was 39 and lived in Barcelona with his wife, his sister, Liat Baum, told Army Radio.

"He was amazing, with a winning smile. Whoever met him fell in love with him from the first moment," Baum said, crying.

"The thought of what he went through in those moments is very difficult."

Spanish media are reporting that a Lufthansa Airbus suffered a 4,000ft uncontrolled descent over the country's skies in November 2014, with no consequence for passengers and crew as the pilots were able to regain full control of the aircraft.

Lufthansa and Germanwings have established a telephone hotlines for the families of the passengers involved. Here are the relevant phone numbers:

More from Germanwings on flight cancellations:

Following the incident in France yesterday, Germanwings cancels one flight today and operates the remaining flights according to schedule. Due to emotional distress, some crew members are also unfit for service today. Germanwings understands these circumstances, as crew members have lost beloved colleagues in the incident.

Today, Germanwings operates eleven aircraft, predominantly from other airlines like Lufthansa, Air Berlin and TuiFly on approximately 40 flights.

Australia's foreign ministry Julie Bishop confirms two Australians are among the victims.

"Sadly, I can confirm that there were two Australian citizens on board, a mother and her adult son from Victoria," she said.

"We are seeking to identify whether there were any other Australian citizens, dual nationals or permanent residents on board that flight. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of this shocking tragedy."

The two have been identified as Greig Friday, 29, and his mother Carol, 68, from Melbourne.

The European Parliament has observed a minute of silence to remember the victims of the plane crash.

President Martin Schulz has expressed his condolences to the families of those who died.

16 students and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium in Haltern-am-See, near Duesseldorf, returning from an exchange programme in Spain were among those killed in the crash.

Emotional scenes were photographed this morning as their schoolmates returned to the institute as lessons resumed.

The first black box recovered from the crash site has arrived in Paris for analysis, Alain Vidalies, France's state secretary for transports tells Europe 1.

Investigators are to start working on it this morning, Vidalies says, adding that if voices have been recorded by the device, answers on what happened to flight 4U 9525 might come shortly.

A noise analysis might take weeks to produce results instead, he says.

This photo taken yesterday from a recovery helicopter shows French gendarmes and rescue crew making their way around debris from the Airbus A320 in the mountains, near Seyne-les-Alps.

Germanwings issued a statement on today's flight cancellations:

Germanwings, which is owned by Lufthansa, is to cancel more flights as crews are refusing to fly after the unexplained crash of flight 4U 9525.

"There will be irregularities... There are crew members who do not want to fly in the current situation, which we understand," a spokeswoman for Germanwings said, Reuters reports.

French minister and former Presidential candidate Ségolène Royal says that the black box recovered is the cockpit voice recorder. The second black box containing the flight data recorder is yet to be found.

As suggested by its name, the voice recorder audio records everything happening in the cockpit as well as conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers.

Royal, France's environment minister also in charge of transport, tells RMC all hypothesis are being investigated by detectives probing the crash, adding that terrorism "It's not the favoured lead at the moment."

French authorities say a black box from the plane has been damaged in the crash but is still "usable".

AP reports:

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the black box recovered from the crash site has been damaged but is believed to be "useable." He says it is the voice and cockpit sound recorder.

Cazeneuve told RTL radio on Wednesday that investigators were working to pull information from the black box voice recorder.

Although officials have been firm that no cause has been ruled out, Cazeneuve said terrorism is not considered likely.

Helicopter operations have resumed in the southern French Alps where a Germanwings A320 jetliner crashed yesterday, killing 144 passengers and six crew.

Causes for the crash are not yet clear. No distress call was sent out by the experienced crew of flight 4U 9525.

The plane lost radio contact with its control centre over France as it was flying from Barcelona in Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany. It made an eight-minute rapid descent eventually crashing into a steep mountainside near the Alpine town of Barcelonnette.

A black box has been recovered from the scene and is being analysed by investigators.

Welcome to IBTimes UK second day of live coverage of the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps.

UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond says it is 'likely' that Britons on board.

"I don't want to speculate on numbers of British nationals involved until we have completed our checks on all the passenger information.

"However, based on the information available to us, it is sadly likely that there were some British nationals on board the flight. We are providing consular assistance and will give further help as more information becomes available."

Recovery efforts have been called off for the night. Weather conditions are expected to worsen over the next 12 hours, with driving rain, freezing temperatures and snow forecast.

Two German opera singers who had been in Barcelona to perform in Richard Wagner's Siegfried, bass baritone Oleg Bryjak and contralto Maria Radner were on board.

"We have lost a great performer and a great person in Oleg Bryjak. We are stunned," said Christoph Meyer, director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

Maria Radner took the Germanwings flight with her husband and baby.

A woman did not board the Germanwings flight because she was too pregnant to fly - leaving her husband to travel alone. Her partner was named as Josep Sabat Casellas by Spanish media.

The victim had three children aged three, five and seven years old, and his wife - named by La Voz de Galicia website as Marta Carceller - is pregnant with her fourth child.

Israel's Foreign Ministry confirmed that an Israeli citizen was on board the Airbus. The family has been informed, the ministry said. The man, a 40-year-old originally from Hod HaSharon, was living in Germany.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says the crash site is "a picture of horror."

After being flown over the crash scene, he said: "The grief of the families and friends is immeasurable. We must now stand together. We are united in our great grief."

He also thanked the French for their "exemplary" help, according to an AP report.

Lufthansa says it is treating the crash as an accident "for the time being". Heike Birlenbach, the company's vice president says: "we say it is an accident. There is nothing more we can say right now," AP reports.

Lufthansa is the parent company of low-cost airline Germanwings, which operated flight 4U9525.

US President Barack Obama spoke about the crash. The White House tweets:

Candles have been placed outside the entrance of the Josef-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in Haltern attended by 16 of the victims. A police car is seen parked parked outside the institute. Two teachers were also killed in the crash.

The Spanish government said a minute of silence will be hold across the country at midday tomorrow to remember the crash victims.

Madrid also declared three days of mourning, starting tomorrow.

The German North Rhine-Westphalia state Education Ministry confirms that a group of 16 tenth-graders and their two teachers, from Haltern, northeast of Duesseldorf, were on board the plane.

Haltern Mayor Bodo Klimpel told a press conference "this is, of course, the worst thing you could imagine."

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirms that a black box has been found.

AP reports:

A spokesman for the French Civil Aviation authority says the plane that crashed in the French Alps with 150 people on board never sent out a distress signal.

Eric Heraud said the plane lost radio contact at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, but "never declared a distress alert itself."

He said it was the combination of loss of radio contract with control and the plane's descent which prompted the control service to declare a distress.

The National Gendarmerie says all aircrafts are banned from flying over the crash area, tweets a map of the site.

Alpes-de-Haute-Provence MP Christophe Castaner tells France Info that one of the plane's two black boxes has been found.

France's president Hollande and Spain's King Felipe VI have both arrived at Place Beauvau - the headquarters of the interior ministry in Paris - to join the works of an inter-ministerial crisis cell set up to coordinate response to the plane crash.

Here is a video published by the Elysee palace:

The US National Security Council says there is no indication terrorism is involved.

Spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan says: "There is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time."

The German Foreign Office tweets:

France's National Gendarmerie says 210 of its officers from several departments and nine helicopters are currently involved in the rescue operations.

AirLive tweets:

French authorities say it might take several days to recover all the bodies.

Lt. Col. Bloy from the local gendarmerie police tells Haute-Provence Info website the plane crashed on a "very steep, rugged, mountainside."

He says debris is scattered over an area of about one hectare. There are about a dozen large pieces while the rest of remains are small and fragmented.

"It could take several days to evacuate the bodies of the crash zone," Bloy says.

Local councillor Gilbert Sauvan told Les Echos newspaper: "The plane is completely disintegrated. The largest debris is the size of a car"

"The area of the crash is inaccessible except with a helicopter," he added.

He says more than 500 people, including police, firefighters and other emergency services have been mobilised.

AP reports:

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says a helicopter has managed to land near where a passenger plane carrying 150 people crashed in the Alps, but found no survivors. The weather in the area deteriorated Tuesday afternoon, with a chilly rain falling.

French PM Manuel Valls says "no hypothesis can be ruled out" in investigation into what caused the crash.

Germanwings Ceo Winkelmann: "We have to investigate properly what went wrong".

Germanwings Ceo Winkelmann says the plane's captain had been flying with Germanwings and Lufthansa for 10 years, with more than 6,000 hours notched up flying Airbus models.

He adds that according to their information there were 67 German nationals on board.

The Ceo says they have no idea what caused the captain to initiate the rapid decent that eventually resulted in the crash.

Winkelmann says that a Lufthansa team carried out a routine check on the aircraft as recently as yesterday.

Two babies were among the 144 passengers who died, he says.

Germanwings Ceo Thomas Winkelmann tells a press conference that the plane stared losing altitude at 10.45 local time. It descent lasted about eight minutes before contact was lost.

French authorities have asked the public to stay away from the area of the crash not to obstruct access to rescue services.

The National Gendarmerie tweets: "Do not try to reach the A320 crash site of. Do not clutter the roads".

The plane came down in a mountainous area "difficult to access" President Francois Hollande said earlier.

AFP quoting aviation official as saying that Germanwings crew did not send distress signal.

German media reports that 16 students and two teachers from a school in Haltern in Germany were on the plane.

Rescue helicopters were not allowed to land in the area of the crash, according to reports.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will head to France tomorrow to follow the developments in person.

A spokesman earlier said Merkel was "deeply shaken" by news, Reuters reports.

British Prime Minister David Cameron tweets:

According to an aviation safety database, in 1953 a Lockheed L-749A Constellation operated by AirFrance crashed in the same area killing 42 people.

Aviation Safety Network website writes:

A Lockheed L-749A Constellation, F-BAZZ, was destroyed when it crashed into the side of Mont Le Cimet (3020 m), 80 km northwest of Nice, France.All 33 passengers and nine crew members were killed. Among the passengers a famous French violinist, Jacques Thibaud. The airplane had initiated its descent for Nice when it struck the mountainside. Investigators concluded that the flight had deviated from the planned course for unknown reasons

A witness tells AP he heard the plane making curious noises shortly before it crashed.

Pierre Polizzi, the owner of a campground near the crash site, says:

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.The noise I heard was long — like 8 seconds — as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane speed. There was another long noise after about 30 seconds.

France Interior ministry tweets image of an inter-ministerial crisis cell set up to coordinate response to the plane crash:

British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Philip Hammond tweets:

Donald Tusk, President of the European Council says:

On behalf of the European Union, I wish to convey my deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the flight that crashed in southern France this morning. Let me also express my sympathy and solidarity to the governments of all affected nations, including to the French President, the German Chancellor and the Spanish Prime Minister.

Causes for the crash are not yet clear. Capt. Benoit Zeisser of the Digne-le-Bains police said there were some high clouds in the region but there did not appear to be turbulence.

The plane's descent speed, said to be standard for landing approaches, suggests an accident, possibly a depressurisation of the cockpit, might have occurred on board, followed by an attempt by the pilots to bring the aircraft down.

Just 10 percent of fatal accidents occur at that point when the plane is at cruising elevation.

A photo from the helicopter of the crash area has been posted on Twitter by France 2 journalists:

French President Francois Hollande says could be a "few hours" before emergency teams get to crash site

Lufthansa and Germanwings have established a telephone hotline. The toll-free 00800 11 33 55 77 number is available to all the families of the victims.

Authorities have confirmed that the last words from the Germanwings distress call were "emergency, emergency"

The A320 family has a good safety record, with just 0.14 fatal accidents per million takeoffs, AP reports, citing a Boeing safety analysis.

There are more than 3,600 A320s currently in operation worldwide, according to Airbus.

Carsten Spohr, The CEO of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, says:

"My deepest sympathy is with all the relatives and friends of our passengers and crew on 4U 9525. If our fears are confirmed, this is a dark day for Lufthansa. We hope to find survivors."

Germanwings blackened its Twitter logo following the crash:

France president Francois Hollande is holding a press conference with visiting King of Spain Felipe VI:

"We have Spanish passengers among the victims. I want to express on behalf of French people our condolences and our solidarity with the King of Spain Felipe VI and the prime minister Mariano Rajoy," he said, adding that the victims of the crash were from Germany, Spain and Turkey victims.

"There will be no French victims but I want to express our sadness regarding to the families in mourning," he continued.

"We are in mourning. All means are in place so that the circumstances of the accident are established and in order to find the victims. The accident happened in very difficult to access zone," he said.

The Spanish King cancelled state visit to France after the crash.

According to Flight Radar, Flight 4U9525 climbed to 38,000 feet and then started to descend at a rate of about 3000-4000 feet, until signal was lost at 6,800 feet.

Pierre-Martin Charpenel, the mayor of Barcelonette, told iTele weather conditions in the area at the time of the crash were mainly " calm " and sunny, with some high clouds but "no storm" .

A passenger plane has crashed in southern France, authorities said. The aircraft, an Airbus A320 from German low-cost airline Germanwings, came down in Digne, southern France.

Some 144 passengers and six crew members were on board flight 4U9525 between Barcelona, Spain, and the German city of Dusseldorf, as it disappeared from radars minutes after 9.30am UTC.

France's President Francois Hollande said the plane crashed near the commune of Barcelonnette in a mountainous area "difficult to access". He said: "The conditions of the crash suggest that there are no survivors."

Broadcaster iTele reported the rescue helicopters spotted debris from the plane at more than 2,000m of altitude.