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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20081127/tot-uk-france-aircrash-5ad7779.html
Two dead and five missing in Airbus crash in France
An Air New Zealand Airbus A320 on a test flight crashed into the sea off France's southwest coast on Thursday, killing at least two people with a further five still missing, authorities said.
File photo of Air New Zealand Airbus A320 Airliner
France's BEA civil aviation safety authority said the crash took place at 4:46 p.m. (3:46 p.m. British time) when the aircraft, made by the Airbus unit of European aerospace group EADS, was approaching the airport at Perpignan, in southwestern France after a flight that had lasted about an hour.
A witness told French radio he saw the plane dive abruptly and plunge into the Mediterranean sea.
"I could see it was an airliner because I saw two large engines. There was no fire, nothing," the witness, a local policeman, told France Info radio.
"It was flying straight, then it turned brutally towards the ground. I said to myself it will never pull out and there was a big spray of water," he said.
Local authorities said recovery teams with five boats, two diving teams and a helicopter were on site and a navy vessel had been dispatched to search for the aircraft's flight recorder.
Two bodies had been recovered but conditions were difficult with bad weather and darkness and authorities held out no hope anyone had survived.
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said he was not ready to assume that all seven had been killed.
"I'm hopeful there still may be survivors, early indications are that the plane and debris were floating on the water, and I certainly haven't given up hope," he told a news conference in Auckland.
He said five New Zealanders and two Germans were aboard the aircraft which had been leased to German carrier XL Airways and was being tested after a refit prior to return to New Zealand next month.
The crash occurred exactly 29 years after New Zealand's worst-ever air crash when an Air New Zealand plane on a sightseeing trip in Antarctica hit the side of Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.
"To have this incident occur on the same day just adds to the sense of tragedy," Fyfe said.
The A320 is a twin-engine, single aisle aircraft that normally seats around 150 passengers. About 1,960 A320 aircraft are in service with 155 operators around the world, Airbus said.
It said the aircraft, powered by IAE V2500 engines, was delivered in July 2005 and had accumulated approximately 7,000 flight hours in some 2,800 flight cycles.
Airbus said it would assist authorities investigating the crash and had sent five specialists to the site but it added it would be inappropriate to speculate on the causes.
"At this stage no further factual information is available," it said in a statement.
The Pyrenees-Orientales prefecture, the regional authority, said the plane was on a "technical flight" and was being serviced by a company based in Perpignan.
Two dead and five missing in Airbus crash in France
An Air New Zealand Airbus A320 on a test flight crashed into the sea off France's southwest coast on Thursday, killing at least two people with a further five still missing, authorities said.
File photo of Air New Zealand Airbus A320 Airliner
France's BEA civil aviation safety authority said the crash took place at 4:46 p.m. (3:46 p.m. British time) when the aircraft, made by the Airbus unit of European aerospace group EADS, was approaching the airport at Perpignan, in southwestern France after a flight that had lasted about an hour.
A witness told French radio he saw the plane dive abruptly and plunge into the Mediterranean sea.
"I could see it was an airliner because I saw two large engines. There was no fire, nothing," the witness, a local policeman, told France Info radio.
"It was flying straight, then it turned brutally towards the ground. I said to myself it will never pull out and there was a big spray of water," he said.
Local authorities said recovery teams with five boats, two diving teams and a helicopter were on site and a navy vessel had been dispatched to search for the aircraft's flight recorder.
Two bodies had been recovered but conditions were difficult with bad weather and darkness and authorities held out no hope anyone had survived.
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe said he was not ready to assume that all seven had been killed.
"I'm hopeful there still may be survivors, early indications are that the plane and debris were floating on the water, and I certainly haven't given up hope," he told a news conference in Auckland.
He said five New Zealanders and two Germans were aboard the aircraft which had been leased to German carrier XL Airways and was being tested after a refit prior to return to New Zealand next month.
The crash occurred exactly 29 years after New Zealand's worst-ever air crash when an Air New Zealand plane on a sightseeing trip in Antarctica hit the side of Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.
"To have this incident occur on the same day just adds to the sense of tragedy," Fyfe said.
The A320 is a twin-engine, single aisle aircraft that normally seats around 150 passengers. About 1,960 A320 aircraft are in service with 155 operators around the world, Airbus said.
It said the aircraft, powered by IAE V2500 engines, was delivered in July 2005 and had accumulated approximately 7,000 flight hours in some 2,800 flight cycles.
Airbus said it would assist authorities investigating the crash and had sent five specialists to the site but it added it would be inappropriate to speculate on the causes.
"At this stage no further factual information is available," it said in a statement.
The Pyrenees-Orientales prefecture, the regional authority, said the plane was on a "technical flight" and was being serviced by a company based in Perpignan.
