Family members of passengers killed in Germanwings plane crash arrive at Barcelona's El Prat airport on March 24, 2015. REUTERS/Gustau Nacarino An Airbus A320 flying from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday morning.

The Germanwings flight was carrying 144 passengers and six crew members. Officials said they were not expecting survivors.

"Everything is pulverized," Gilbert Sauvan, president of the general council of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told the Associated Press.

There is no apparent cause for the crash. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said one of the two black boxes, which record flight data, has been found.

"We saw an aircraft that had literally been ripped apart, the bodies are in a state of destruction, there is not one intact piece of wing or fuselage," Bruce Robin, prosecutor for the city of Marseille, told Reuters in Seyne-les-Alpes after flying over the crash zone in a helicopter.

REUTERS An owner of a nearby camping site told Al Jazeera that he heard the plane come down.

"The plane crashed just 2 kilometers [1.2 miles] from here, high on a mountain," Pierre Polizzi said. "There was loud noise and then suddenly nothing. At first I thought it came from fighter jets that often hold drills in the area."

The plane dropped to a cruising altitude of just 5,000 feet from 38,000 feet in about 8 minutes.

"Contact between the airplane and French radar and French flight controllers was lost at 10:53 a.m. at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. The plane then crashed," Lufthansa unit Germanwings' managing director, Thomas Winkelmann, said during a press conference.

A local official told The New York Times that "an initial survey of the area by a helicopter showed that debris had been spread over five acres of a very craggy area."

Here's a view of the scene:

And here's video:



Weather conditions were reportedly good at the time of the crash.

Polizzi, the campground owner, told the Associated Press: "The noise I heard was long — like 8 seconds — as if the plane was going more slowly than a military plane speed. There was another long noise after about 30 seconds."

Dozens of firefighters and police officers headed to the crash site, according to the French newspaper Le Monde, as well as French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.



French fire brigade rescue units gather in a field near a farm building as they prepare to reach the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, in the French Alps, March 24, 2015. REUTERS/Robert Pratta French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the search-and-rescue operation would be long and extremely difficult because the area is so remote. It's thought to be inaccessible by land vehicles.

The airline believed 67 Germans were on the flight, including 16 children and two teachers. Spain's deputy prime minister said 45 passengers had Spanish names.

Bodies are being taken to an emergency morgue set up in a nearby gym, according to a reporter for the Daily Mirror.

French Police and Gendarmerie Alpine rescue units gather on a field as they prepare to reach the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, in the French Alps, March 24, 2015. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

Rescue helicopters from the French Securite Civile and the Air Force are seen in front of the French Alps during a rescue operation near to the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March 24, 2015. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

A rescue helicopter from the French Securite Civile flies towards the French Alps during a rescue operation near the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March 24, 2015. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

Flight 4U9525 was from the budget airline Germanwings, which is based in Cologne and was founded in 2002. It is wholly owned by Lufthansa.

The Airbus plane that crashed was 24 years old and has been with Lufthansa since 1991, according to Reuters.

Germanwings said in a statement that the plane that crashed had accumulated about 58,300 flight hours on 46,700 flights.

There have been several other major plane crashes in Europe during the past several years:

Last major Europe air crashes: 2014 with MH17 in Ukraine, 2010 with Polish president's plane, 2009 Air France from Rio-Paris, 2008 in Madrid — Harriet Alexander (@h_alexander) March 24, 2015



French President François Hollande tweeted a statement expressing solidarity with the families of the victims.

French President Francois Hollande (C), Spain's King Felipe VI and his wife Queen Letizia leave the Elysee Palace in Paris, March 24, 2015. The three-day state visit of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain has been suspended following the crash of an Airbus operated by Lufthansa's Germanwings budget airline in a remote area of the French Alps on Tuesday. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

The BI London Bureau contributed to this report.