Barcelona – Düsseldorf

On March 24, 2015 at 10:41 AM, Barcelona – Düsseldorf experienced a crash involving Airbus A320, operated by Germanwings, with the event recorded near Prads-Haute-Bléone Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

150 people were known to be on board, 150 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 6, crew fatalities: 6, passengers on board: 144, passenger fatalities: 144, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. The aircraft left Barcelona at 1000LT on a scheduled flight to Düsseldorf (flight 4U9525/GWI18G). At 1032LT, one minute after reaching its assigned cruising altitude of 38,000 feet near Toulon (level off), the aircraft started to lose altitude and continued a straight in descent during nine minutes, until it reached the altitude of 6,800 feet. It was later confirmed that no distress call was sent by the crew. Radar contact was lost at a height of 6,800 feet at 1041LT when the aircraft hit a mountain slope located near Prads-Haute-Bléone, northeast of Digne-les-Bains. At the time of the accident, weather conditions were considered as good with no storm activity, reasonable wind component and no turbulence. The crash site was reached by first rescuers in the afternoon and the aircraft disintegrated on impact. None of the 150 occupants survived the crash. The second black box (DFDR) was found on April 2, nine days after the accident.

Aircraft reference details include registration D-AIPX, MSN 147, year of manufacture 1990.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 44.2196°, 6.4421°.