He said that he could not say with "total certainty" that no French nationals were aboard the Germanwings flight that crashed in a remote, snowbound area while en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, Germany.
The head of low-budget airline Germanwings said there were 144 passengers and six crew on the aircraft that crashed in the French Alps today, adjusting an earlier toll.
None of the 150 people aboard a Germanwings plane that crashed into the French Alps survived, France's junior transport minister said.
"A distress call was registered at 10:47. The distress signal showed the plane was at 5,000 feet in an abnormal situation," Vidalies said.
The plane, which was en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Duesseldorf, "crashed in the Estrop range," he said.
"It's an area that is snowbound, inaccessible to (ground) vehicles, but which could be overflown by helicopters," he said. The minister was to head to the crash zone with other government officials.
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