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bailout as the prime minister meets the german chancellor. >> some news just coming in from france, that of a german wings plane that has crashed in the southern french apples. this is a budget carrier budget airline en route to either from barcelona to did you say he willdorf or the other way around when it crashed. >> we understand that it was flying from germany to

barcelona. the company is saying it's aware of reports of speculation about one of the its airliners but it hasn't gone any further than that. german wings is the low cost subsidiary of lieu of chance is a. there's no confirmation of what caused the plane to come down, whether there were fatalities. events are fast moving. we will be looking into this to find out what german wings is saying about it, whether there were adverse weather conditions at the time, but at the moment, that is speculation, there is no clear certainty about what

caused this plane to come down and the airline is confirming speculation but there is no certainty. >> it's only within the last 10 minutes that we've been getting news of this disaster, because it does appear too have occurred. we do understand that a distress call was issued from the plane and otherwise we're very, very short on detail, aren't we, at this stage. >> yes, we are martin. the point about this is this is an airline part of a much wider airline group the lufthansa group. that it's airline had a plane come down, it has a very very good record and transports thousands and thousands of passengers every year. there will be a concern by the providers of the aircraft, the

a320 the airbus 320 which has generally speaking a very good safety record, so concern will be there on the part of the aircraft manufacturers and on the part of the airline concerned itself and also from the german government that this may have happened with perhaps many determine man people onboard. we don't know yet it's worth making that point we don't know yet the break down of nationalities onboard. we do know it was traveling from germany to southern spain and has come down in france, it may have come down into a mountainous area. there's little fact so far but certainly here in germany people are scrambling to find out what happened, what occurred, what might have caused this plane to come down. there's lots of speculation so far and little fact. >> i can only imagine the

consternation rippling through germany now. what more do we know about the airline? it's a low cost airline and this particular model of plane this airbus? >> they operate 80 aircraft, low cost, low frills, short haul destinations around europe and to other countries around western europe, central europe, that sort of thing. they tend the break down of the airline is they tend to the airbuses, whether it's an a319, which is short haul or the a3120 which is the concern in this incident. the safety record is relatively good. these are airliners with very many different airlines operate around the world seen as a work horse, as it were for transporting passengers short distances a understand short haul flights low frills sort of

thing around the world. i think we need to be careful about going into too much detail about safety records until we have certainty about what might have caused this plane to come down. we need to be very clear about saying that the airliner concerned, the aircraft manufacturers will point to safety records but a320s are flying every day around the world in all sorts of countries and their safety record is very good. again, i think we need to be very careful here not to speculate too far. certainly the airliner concerned, german wings has referred to the speculation it says about its airliner, but so far, at least there's no factual, no confirmation from them about this incident, clearly as you've referred to this report of some distress national or call being made, but that is not being referred to here in germany at least. that sort of information is

mr. likely to come from france and southern france in the area that jacky rowland was referring to. >> we are getting confirmation now, the french president francois hollande has actually confirmed that indeed this tragedy has occurred. he's talked about 142 to 150 people feared dead, so on that plane, obviously that's the number. dominic, i wonder if you know this particular part of france, we're talking about an alpine area mountainous area toward the south of the country. >> yes well, looking on social media, there was some indication that the name indicates high ground mountainous. that maybe one of the factors to air accident investigators will look into, whether what caused

the plane to be low flying, perhaps low in an air that was mountainous, but obviously translating from duesseldorf to barcelona in southern spain it would be taken in that area. >> this area is somewhere that would not necessarily be the kind of place you'd expect there to be problems that would bring an airliner down. again, we need to be careful looking into what may have caused this and go back to and report what the airline is saying. the french president has referred to this, but so far german wings has not come out with confirmation of this, but

due to the french president speaking to it, i suspect we will get more information very shortly here. >> we're going to talk to an aviation expert. thank you for talking to us. i know it's very late in the evening for you because you're in christchurch new zealand. how much do you know about this particular incident, and if not much, tell us what you know about this model of plane. >> it's a work horse and a low cost airlines, pretty much a state of the art aircraft with high computer control and it has a good safety record.

it's operated all over the world successfully. the details are all very doubtful at the moment. >> we heard reports of there being a distress call, david can that give us any clue as to what kind of difficulty that the plane got into? >> this would have to be confirmed by the investigators who will start looking into all these sort of things. the investigation will be taken by the french authorities with assistance from the germans from the aircraft manufacturers.

it's early to speculate until we get factual evidence about what transmission were made and what happened. basically, if there was an emergency on the aircraft, the priority is to try to keep the aircraft flying and under control, and once you've done that, you put out a message. the meme doesn't often actually save the aircraft, it's just an indication that something is happening. >> right. as it was we do understand that it departed from barcelona at 9:01 was expected to arrive induce

düsseldorf. >> thank you for that. i don't want to take you too much into oh the realms of speculation. that's all wing do at this stage with the very scant detail we have of this incident. we can talk to our corresponded jacky rowland who's in paris in the french capitol. we've had confirmation coming from the french president. >> yes, we have indeed, francois hollande spoke a few moments ago, released a statement a few moments ago describes this as an aerial tragedy. he said that the full details of what could happen would become clear in the coming hours but he said from now just for now

for the time being the priority had to be the people on the plane and emergency services who are going to be veg engaged in this for the coming hours. >> ever anymore details emerged from the site of this crash? >> the interior minister, the french interior minister is on his way to the site as we speak. we understand that the plane came down near a village in the french alps, clearly a mountainous region. it was only at 10:47 local time, so only about 1:20 that the

distress call was first received, so we really are in a very early stage at the moment in trying to find out details about what exactly happened and what situation is on the ground in the area. >> nonetheless, president hollande has suggested it's unlikely there were survivors and there were up to 150 people onboard. >> we understand that there were 142 passengers and six crew members onboard. bearing in mind about the mountainous area and altitude that the plane would have been traveling, clearly the hopes of survivors must be very slim. >> it's all very grim, isn't it? for now jacki, thank you very much. this is what we know, then, that a plane has gone down. it's an airbus a320 with 142

passengers onboard and six crew members. the french president francois hollande has confirmed this happened in the french alps near a village. we understand now from our correspondent that the french interior minister is on his way to the village. this has happened been the last hour and a half. as you can imagine the details are rather scant but we're going to bring you every detail on this particular incident, of course, as soon as we get them here at al jazeera. we're going to take a short break now. don't go away.

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>> we're taking a hard look at the most important issues out there that get you the answers that you deserve. >> real money with ali velshi only on al jazeera america >> let's remind you of the breaking news story this hour, germanwings flight 9325 has crashed in the southern region of france. it was en route from barcelona to düsseldorf when it went down. we understand that 142 passengers and six crew were onboard. the airbus a320 debris has been spotted close to the french village of bars loan net near

nice. the president said there is a clear indication of a high death toll and this is perceived as an air disaster. it's worth saying that the germanwings employs 2,000 people, has ate one different aircraft, very much this airbus 320, which is one hundred million-dollar plane with a very clear safety record, and the airline itself, germanwings has a very good safety record. it's something that lieu of to

answer is a it's parent provider. in so fares where this happened, barcelonnette, a mountainous area, rural area, not particularly well populated. it's interesting it came down there, it should have been traveling around 30,000 feet and where contact was lost with it, it was around 6,800 feet, 7,000 feet, we understand from different social media reports which would seem to indicate there is no obvious reason it should be flying that low when contact was lost with it. those are areas that the air accident investigators will most certainly be looking to go into, and are certainly things they will be pursuing in the hours

that come. there's also the suggestion of what the local weather conditions were like at the time. they will be key to establishing what it was that brought this airliner down. >> we understand that this a320 airbus is a kind of work horse of the aviation industry. our aviation expert was telling us about it and it has a very, very good safety record indeed. >> yes there are thousands of types of this aircraft in service with airliners around the world. every day there will be people boarding an a320 flight. it is a low frills airlines, the ones that look to transport people with low frills with not a great deal of equipment onboard, and so that they can be done as a low cost effective economic budget airline as it

were. germanwings was doing exactly that with airliners like this. it's also worth making the point that this was a short journey. the airliner should have been landed on the ground for sometime now. if an airliner like that is an airliner that is very popular around the european union and there are very likely to be many in the air right now transporting thousands of people. if it is with the airline it will not be just a concern to germanwings, but to all sorts of airlines around the world and to the manufacturer airbus for who as you say, it is a work horse. >> it seems very much as though the relative authorities are playing catch up here.

we're seeing that the spanish --

while in country, he paid tribute to our bilateral friendship, relationship, and shared values and the courage and the fierce independence of the afghan people. a pride of independence that we have

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while in country, he paid tribute to our bilateral friendship, relationship, and shared values and the courage and the fierce independence of the afghan people. a pride of independence that we have come to know well. he also marvelled at his ability i might add to travel to far in such a short time while remarking how close together the world now was in the middle of the 20th century. well, today's productive meetings underscore the enduring nature of the u.s.-afghan friendship and the extent to which we have grown much closer after 14 years of shared sacrifice. it's worth underscoring that >> i don't know if there have

been any homes affected. we will know this in the next few hours. >> let's talk to our paris correspondent, jacky rowland. what have you managed to find out about this, because of course the plane has gone down very close it would appear to a french village. >> yes, that's right. the plane has crashed near the village of barcelona a very small village quite renote in the french alps. we are talking about a high mountainous region. it will make things difficult for emergency services, the kind of terrain they will be dealing with. the interior minister is on his way to the site. this is very typical of