French rescue workers searched on Friday for the bodies of five people missing after a passenger jet carrying two Germans and five New Zealanders plunged into the Mediterranean.
Two bodies were found on Thursday shortly after the crash, but five others were still missing after the Air New Zealand Airbus A320 crashed as it approached Perpignan airport near the border with Spain after a short test flight.
A gendarme who raised the alarm after he saw the plane go down said he watched as it suddenly went into a dive while flying at a height of around 300m.
PHOTO: AP
“It tried to straighten up but then it fell right into the sea, sending a huge spray of water into the air,” he said.
Strong winds and choppy seas made the search more difficult, but navy divers returned to the scene at dawn on Friday to join the hunt for the bodies and for the plane’s black boxes.
Late on Friday, the deputy prosecutor for Perpignan, Dominique Alzeari, said the location of the black boxes had been found after divers were able to scour the seabed despite poor weather.
“The priority is to recover the bodies, to compare DNA samples to identify the victims and return their remains to their families,” Alzeari said.
The wreck is lying on a sandy bank at a depth of 35m, officials said late on Thursday, before suspending the search for the night, adding that there was no hope of finding survivors. A rescue plane and a helicopter were circling the crash area on Friday to try to spot bodies, while several navy and coastguard boats scoured the sea.
French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau flew over the site where the plane went down about 7km off the coast.
He later went to pay his respects to the two dead men in the hospital in Perpignan where their bodies were taken, and was due to be briefed by investigators probing the cause of the crash.
The plane went to France for tests and to be repainted in the colors of Air New Zealand before heading to Frankfurt in Germany from where it was scheduled to leave for New Zealand on Friday, Bussereau said.
Built in 2005, it had been leased to German charter firm XL Airways since 2006.
Airline spokesman Asger Schubert said the two pilots in the jet were German and worked for XL Airways Germany.
The jet had been undergoing servicing at EAS Industries in Perpignan and had been flying circuits for 90 minutes before it crashed, an emergency services spokesman said.
Hundreds of shocked Air New Zealand staff gathered at the airline’s headquarters in Auckland where they were told it was unlikely any of those on board had survived.
An Air New Zealand pilot and three engineers were among five New Zealanders on board as observers during the flight ahead of the return of the Airbus to Air New Zealand.
Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe was en route to France on Friday, along with family members of at least one of the airline’s staff on the crashed plane.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said: “I think I speak for all New Zealanders when I say this is a great tragedy. We’ll work with Air New Zealand and the families to help in any way that is appropriate.”
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