Hollande, Merkel arrive at crash site
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Shanghai Daily, March 26, 2015
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived together by helicopter Wednesday in the remote Alpine region where an Airbus plane smashed into a mountain, ahead of an international tribute to the 150 victims.
![French President Francois Hollande(2nd R, front) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel(1st R, front) shake hands with rescue team members in Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on March 25, 2015. French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived Wednesday afternoon in Seyne-Les-Alpes, the site of an operation center for Germanwings' crashed A320 in southern France. [Photo/Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20150326/001aa0ba3c16167db0b63a.jpg "French President Francois Hollande(2nd R, front) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel(1st R, front) shake hands with rescue team members in Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on March 25, 2015. French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived Wednesday afternoon in Seyne-Les-Alpes, the site of an operation center for Germanwings' crashed A320 in southern France. [Photo/Xinhua]") |
|
French President Francois Hollande(2nd R, front) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel(1st R, front) shake hands with rescue team members in Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on March 25, 2015. French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived Wednesday afternoon in Seyne-Les-Alpes, the site of an operation center for Germanwings' crashed A320 in southern France. [Photo/Xinhua] |
The two leaders were flown over the nearby ravine where the Germanwings airliner came down on Tuesday, Hollande's office said. Spain's Mariano Rajoy later joined them in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, headquarters of the search operation.
Germanwings said 72 Germans were killed in the crash, the first major air passenger disaster on French soil since the 2000 Concorde accident just outside Paris. Spanish officials said 49 Spaniards were among the victims.
Hollande, Rajoy and a visibly moved Merkel thanked search teams and were due to meet families of victims of the still-unexplained crash, which followed a sharp descent of the Airbus A320. A simple tribute was planned later in the day.
The ceremony was to take place on a site with a view in the distance of the mountain against which the Airbus crashed. French officials arranged it to give the families a mental image of the area in which their loved ones died.
Earlier, Lufthansa said it could not explain why the Airbus run by its low-cost Germanwings unit crashed. Investigators said the remoteness of the crash site meant it could be days before a clear picture of the tragedy emerged.
But they said the fact that debris was restricted to a small area showed the A320 was not likely to have exploded in mid-air, suggesting a terrorist attack was not to blame.
"It is inexplicable this could happen to a plane free of technical problems and with an experienced pilot," Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told reporters in Frankfurt.
Lufthansa said the 24-year-old plane had on Monday had repairs to the hatch through which the nose wheel descends for landing. A spokeswoman said that was not a safety issue but that repairs had been done to reduce noise.
Police and forensic teams on foot and in helicopters investigated the site where the airliner came down en route to Duesseldorf from Barcelona.
"When we go to a crash site we expect to find part of the fuselage. But here we see nothing at all," said pilot Xavier Roy, coordinating air operations.
It will take at least a week to recover the remains of the victims, he said.
No distress call was received before the crash, but French authorities said one of the two "black box" flight recorders, the cockpit voice recorder, had been recovered.
"The black box has been damaged. We will have to put it back together in the next few hours to be able to get to the bottom of this tragedy," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Beyond Germans and Spaniards, victims included a Moroccan and citizens of America, Britain, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Mexico and the Netherlands, French officials said.
Employees laid candles and flowers by Germanwings headquarters, while Lufthansa and Germanwings staff worldwide held a moment of silence at 10:53am local time — the moment the plane went missing.
Among the victims were 16 teenagers and two teachers from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in the town of Haltern am See in northwest Germany. They were on their way home after a Spanish exchange visit near Barcelona. The school yesterday held a day of mourning. A hand-painted sign said: "Yesterday we were many, today we are alone." Barcelona's Liceu opera house said two singers, Kazakhstan-born Oleg Bryjak and German Maria Radner, died in the crash, while the two Americans presumed to have died include government contractor Yvonne Selke and her daughter.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)