The more we learn about flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf the worse it gets. When reports broke yesterday it was understood that there were 142 people on board but that number has now risen to 150, with 144 passengers and six crew. There are no survivors, and amongst those who died in the crash were 16 schoolchildren and two babies.

The plane, operated by Lufthansa’s Germanwings budget airline, crashed into the French Alps and was obliterated on impact. This from Reuters:

One of the plane’s black box recorders has been found at the crash site, about 100 km (65 miles) north of the Riviera city of Nice, and will be examined immediately, France’s interior minister said.

In Washington, the White House said the crash did not appear to have been caused by a terrorist attack, while Lufthansa said it was working on the assumption that the tragedy had been an accident, adding that any other theory would be speculation.

Adverse weather conditions hampered efforts to land at the crash site and the prognosis from above was not pretty. This from CNN:

Helicopter crews found the airliner in pieces, none of them bigger than a small car, and human remains strewn for several hundred meters, according to Gilbert Sauvan, a high-level official in the Alpes de Haute Provence region who is being briefed on the operation.

Authorities were not able to retrieve any bodies Tuesday, with the frozen ground complicating the effort. Wednesday may not be much easier, with snow in the forecast.

Authorities reported the 16 schoolchildren were from the Joseph Koenig Gymnasium school in Germany and were returning home after taking part in a foreign exchange project.

It is still unclear as to exactly what caused the accident but no foul play is suspected.

[sources:reuters&cnn]