Page 21 - Aa320 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Has airline travel been mostly safe in europe in the last decade or so? >> i think absolutely no question that the safety record in europe has been absolutely exemplary. if you look at the sheer amount of aviation that takes place. what is interesting and worrying about this particular incident we're seeing overnight, is the airline involved is germanwings, a first world airline, part of the lufthansa group. secondly it is the accident happened at altitude it happened at 38,000 feet certainly well into the safest part of the flight. and the third thing of course is people will point out, it's ...

Okay. and we have now joining us on the phone along with john cox and anthony romans mikey kay who has logged a lot of hours in the air. from what you're hearing so far, what are your thoughts and analysis here? >> good morning, mika. yeah i mean what has already been reported it's an a320. we know they were carrying 142 passengers. we know there were six crew onboard. a total of 148. it looks like the aircraft disappeared off radar at about 68,000 feet which puts it quite high in the french if alps region which is interesting. i certainly don't know what the weather conditions were like but u...

No survivors are expected. the other thing about that area is it is very remote. we're talking about 8, 9,000 feet an area with very little road access. so even if there were survivors and, of course the french president simply doesn't know for certain that there are no survivors, but it's an area that it would be difficult for rescue teams to reach very easily. as for the cause of the crash, again, a complete mystery at the moment. this was a plane with a good safety record. the a320 is the workhorse of the industry. the weather appeared normal at the time with cloud and light winds. there wa...

I'm told this is a large boeing aircraft. the numbers at this point are 142 onboard, plus two pilots and four flight attendants. >> 142 passengers would be an average configuration for an a320. the a320 is actually built in france by airbus industries. and so 142 would be normal and a crew of 6 would also be normal. this is an average size a320. >> do you know anything about the location of the crash at this point? we have reports that firefighters are on the way to the scene, but we don't know exactly where that scene is yet. >> the only thing i have indications through some sources that i ha...

Detected gets taken out of the water and looked at we don't know what took this airplane down. ice is one thing at altitude. the other thing that is associated with thunderstorms is turbulence. and turbulence can be a large player in why this aircraft went down not ice. if there is icing conditions hail can damage aircraft can shatter windows, can mess up the leading edge of the aircraft and it can also be adjusted in the engines. so that type of icing could damage the airplane. but more associated with turbulence for what i think we'll be looking for with this accident. >> miles, i want to as...