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Airbus A320 crash in France

Russia ready to help search operation at French plane crash site

Germanwings, Lufthansa's budget airline which operated the flight, said on its Facebook page that 150 people, including 144 passengers and six crew, were on board the plane

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. The Russian Emergencies Ministry is ready to join the search and rescue operation at the site of the Airbus A320 crash in the French Alps, a ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

The plane en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashed in mountainous terrain in the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, southern France.

Read also

No survivors likely in A320 crash in Alps — Hollande

Germanwings, Lufthansa's budget airline which operated the flight, said on its Facebook page that 150 people, including 144 passengers and six crew, were on board the plane.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry spokesman said a team of 50 experienced rescuers were ready to go to France.

"They took part in search and rescue operations for the Malaysian Boeing [MH370 that went missing in March 2014] in the Java Sea and the Russian Sukhoi Superjet in the mountains of Indonesia," the spokesman said.

French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that no one was likely to survive the crash.

Lufthansa said on Twitter that "we do not yet know what has happened to flight 4U 9525."

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