The Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps came down less than a mile from an almost identical air disaster more than 60 years ago when 44 people were killed.

The fate of the Airbus A320, which appeared to drop out of the sky yesterday over the village of Barcelonette, appears to mirror that of Air France flight 178 which crashed close by in 1953.

The aircraft, a Lockheed L-749A Constellation, was coming into land at Nice airport, when it crashed into the side of Mont Le Cimet, close to Barcelonette.

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A map showing the close proximity of an Air France crash in 1953 to that of the Germanwings disaster yesterday in the French Alps

According to accident investigators at the time, the service was en-route to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, from Paris with stops in Nice, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and India.

However, the plane encountered stormy weather over the French Alps with residents in the small village of Fours St. Laurent reporting seeing the aircraft crash into the mountainside and burst into flames.

When rescue teams reached the scene the next day, there were no survivors, with all 35 passengers and nine crew members killed.

Among those that died was French violinist Jacques Thibaud.

An Air France Lockheed aircraft, which flew the airline's service from Paris to Saigon in the 1950s. A similar model crashed in the French Alps in 1953 less than a mile from the doomed Germanwings aircraft yesterday

Famous French violinist Jacques Thibaud, who was killed in the Air France crash in September 1953

Investigators then put the cause of the crash was down to 'controlled flight into terrain'.

This means that an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, water, or an obstacle, with the pilots generally unaware of the danger until it is too late.

Yesterday's crash in almost the exact same spot, all 144 passengers, including six crew members were killed on the flight en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.

The majority of the passengers were Spanish and German with 16 children from the same school in Haltern near Dusseldorf losing their lives.

A French Gendarmerie helicopter flies over the snow covered French Alps during a search and rescue operation. The crash site is less than a mile from the 1953 disaster

It has been claimed that the doomed Germanwings plane may have crashed because the windscreen cracked, causing a sudden drop in oxygen that rendered the pilots unconscious.

Reports circulating on professional pilot forums suggested the black box on the Airbus A320 had been analysed and revealed that a 'structural failure' was responsible for the disaster.

It is thought the windscreen gave way, incapacitating the pilots and leaving them unable to send out a distress call.

Rescue helicopters have today resumed the search for debris and bodies at the crash site. As with the crash 60 years ago, there are no survivors

Today, search operations resumed at first light this morning in near-freezing conditions for debris and bodies at the crash site.

Reports revealed the aircraft had suffered technical issues, including a landing gear problem, a day before it was due to fly from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.