Page 11 - Chi John News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The aircraft. first delivered to lufthansa in 1991. it's one of the oldest aircraft in the germanwings' fleet. >> as long as you have your maintenance schedule in place and follow all the procedures together with the manufacturer there's absolutely no issue with the age of an airport. >> reporter: lufthansa has an impressive safety record. the last incident was in 1993, when two people died in a crash in poland. >> they have a very, very good reputation in germany, and the reason for that is all the planes from germanwings are serviced by lufthansa technicians. >> reporter: germanwings started...

Very tragic moment for our company. everyone at germanwings is deeply shocked and saddened by these events. >> there are a lot of people in mourning as investigators search into clues what caused the night to go over over the french alps. richard quest has more. >> reporter: this is the ill-fated germanwings a-320 last year the airport it was heading for on the final flight. >> this is a tragedy, a tragic very sad day for germanwings and also for the whole lufthansa family. >> reporter: initial safety questions focused on the age of

Plane, from all over the world. australia, belgium, germany, spain, colombia and their families are waiting. i can tell you, john from having covered other plane crashes, this is a particularly painful time for those families. an absolute priority for them will be the repatriation of the bodies and to get answers to figure out what exactly happened. so from that standpoint time is absolutely of the essence. just to give you an understanding of where i am, this is a school not far from the crash site about six miles away. they're going to be setting up a makeshift morgue here at the school as w...

Mainly by air. local officials say it's on a particularly steep part of the mountain. so weather in all of this of course going to be another factor. forecasters saying that conditions in this area are expected to get worse as the day goes on today. more rain and snow at some of the higher elevations on the ground particularly icy conditions also complicating things for officials, requiring specialist equipment to be able to maneuver about. john? >> erin is there any time pressure for the crews to get to the site or have they the option to wait out the bad weather for a day or two? >> reporter...

>> reporter: germany tonight is in the state of sadness and mourning and also of course, in a state of shock, as well. this is a country that prides itself on its ingenuity and all of that extends to the sector of airline safety as well. it's one of the reasons why so many german politicians have come forward. angela merkel will head to the crash site tomorrow. the german foreign minister was there today in a helicopter describing the gruesome pictures he saw. in the early stages, it's all about the victims here in germany. one of the things that germanwings has done is put in place a crisis c...