Postpublished at 17:26 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Image source, AFPCandles and flowers have been laid outside the Joseph-Koenig secondary school, in tribute to the pupils and teachers believed to have lost their lives.
Summary
A Germanwings Airbus A320 has crashed in the French Alps near Digne, with 150 people on board
Flight 4U 9525 was travelling between Barcelona and Duesseldorf
Passengers believed to include 67 Germans and 45 Spanish citizens
French President Francois Hollande said he believed none of those on board had survived
Sixteen German students on a Spanish exchange trip on flight
Opera singers Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner also on board
Search-and-rescue teams reach the crash site at Meolans-Revels
Cologne-based Germanwings is a low-cost airline owned by Lufthansa
Postpublished at 17:26 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Image source, AFPExchange host families 'very upset'published at 17:25 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Josep Aixandri, a councillor in Llinars del Valles, told Spanish newspaper ABC his daughter hosted one of the German students.
He said: "We're very upset because they are children with whom we have shared so many things.
"It hurts me especially because I know my granddaughter was a classmate of one of these young girls and she is going to have a very bad time."
Postpublished at 17:15 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Tom Burridge
BBC News, BarcelonaThe German exchange students reported to have been on the flight, caught a train to Barcelona airport this morning, according to a local politician.
They had been staying with Spanish families in Llinars del Valles. The school involved in the exchange refused to make any comment. It said it would post a statement on its website in due course.
Postpublished at 17:12 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Earlier at a news conference at Seyne les Alpes, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve left open the possibility that some of the 150 people onboard could have survived.
Image source, ReutersImage caption, A family member of a passenger feared dead, pictured at Barcelona's El Prat airport
He said "the violence of the shock leaves little hope," but refused to be categorical.
Mountainous crash sitepublished at 17:12 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Debris from the plane has been located by helicopter, but there is no access to the crash site by road.
Flight recorder 'located'published at 17:03 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a flight recorder has been located at the site in the French Alps where the plane crashed, Associated Press reports.
He said it had been located and would ultimately help in the investigation into the cause of the crash.
It was not immediately clear if it had been been recovered.
Breaking Newspublished at 16:47 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
A flight recorder from the plane has been found, according to the French Interior Minister.
Crisis meetingpublished at 16:41 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
French President Francois Hollande, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Spain's King Felipe and his wife Queen Letizia have attended a crisis meeting at the Interior Ministry in Paris.
Image source, Getty ImagesSpain's king and queen have cancelled their planned state visit.
Sympathy 'overwhelming'published at 16:27 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Mr Klimpe said lessons were suspended at Joseph-Koenig School today and a special assembly will take place on tomorrow.
He said: "We are getting support from all sorts of authorities and we have a number of people well trained in counselling."
"The sympathy is overwhelming," he added.
Details of school trippublished at 16:26 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
The mayor of Haltern in Germany, Bodo Klimpe, has briefed the media about the children from Joseph-Koenig School due to be on this morning's flight.
He says 16 Year 10 students studying Spanish were due to return having been away for just under a week.
Parents came to the school when no mobile telephone contact could be made "expecting the worst", he said.
Postpublished at 16:26 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
@Gendarmerie
Image source, @GendarmerieFrench police have tweeted, external a graphic of the area where recovery efforts are being focused. A no-fly zone has been implemented above the crash site.
Postpublished at 16:08 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Independent news producer Chris Bockman, at Airbus in Toulouse, says that the company's German president, Tom Enders, is about to fly over the crash site in a helicopter from Marseilles.
Postpublished at 16:07 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Image source, @GendarmerieFrench police tweeted, external this data picture, which details emergency response efforts. It says 210 officers are currently at the scene of the crash, including a group of specially trained mountain police. Nine helicopters are also in the area. A further 350 officers are due to be deployed to help with recovery efforts.
Weather conditionspublished at 16:02 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Dr Paul Williams, atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading, says it is unlikely weather conditions will have played a part in the crash, based on the information currently available.
He said there was "some light clear air turbulence forecast" near the flight route but "nothing out of the ordinary... nothing that a modern airliner couldn't normally cope with".
Postpublished at 15:51 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Police outside Joseph-Koenig secondary school in Haltern am See, where a number of victims are said to have attended
Postpublished at 15:50 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Footballer Benedikt Hoewedes, who hails from Haltern and was part of the 2014 World Cup winning squad, posted a series of tweets, external about the tragedy. Speaking in German he said his thoughts were with the families. "Anybody could have been on that plane," he added.
Postpublished at 15:49 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
There is more information on the schoolchildren believed to be on the plane.
Marti Pujol, mayor of the village of Llinars de Valles near Barcelona, told AFP: "There were 16 children and two teachers who had spent a week here, poor things. The children were aged about 15," He said the pupils and teachers left for Barcelona airport on Tuesday morning, though he could not confirm that they had boarded the Germanwings flight as planned.
The schoolchildren are from Haltern am See in northern Germany, "All the signs point to them being on board the plane" when it crashed, said a spokesman for the local authorities in Haltern, Georg Bockey.
Postpublished at 15:40 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Le Dauphine, external newspaper has published what it says is a photo of the crash site.
Postpublished at 15:32 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
Image source, ReutersImage caption, Flags were flying at half mast outside the Germanwings headquarters in Cologne
'Not terrorism'published at 15:28 Greenwich Mean Time 24 March 2015
The White House says US officials have been in touch with French, German and Spanish officials to offer assistance. In a statement, US National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan says there is no indication the crash was the result of terrorism.