Man claims he saw the low-flying aircraft and thought it would struggle to pass the mountains
An eyewitness has spoken of the chilling moment he saw the doomed Germanwings plane fly overhead just minutes before it crashed.
Sébastien Giroud, the owner of a sawmill in Prads, Haute-Bléone, told how he spotted the Airbus A320 flying low - apparently in trouble.
Speaking to local press, Mr Giroud said: "I didn’t see much, perhaps for 2, 3 seconds. The plane was flying very low, I don’t know maybe 1500 or 2,000 meters.
"It was impressive, it seemed it was going down. I said to myself: ‘It won’t pass the mountains'. I didn’t hear any particular noise.”
The plane crashed at an altitude of almost 2,400 metres in a snowy mountainous area called Trois évêchés.
The area is inaccessible for vehicles but helicopters are able to deposit vehicles at the site.
About 150 firefighters and high mountain police are being deployed to the scene, including 40 officers from Grimp – a unit within the Fire Service that specializes in rescue operations in dangerous and inhospitable environments.
Fifty vehicles, including 4x4s, quads and ambulances, are also being deployed.
Dog teams will also investigate at the scene.
According to French President François Hollande he said he could not say with absolute certainty but “there seems to be no French victims”.
German, Spanish and Turkish people were among the nationalities on board.
The airline company, which has changed its logo from orange to black online, is due to hold a press conference at 3pm local time at Cologne-Bonn airport.
According to reports, the German bureau for air accidents is sending three investigators to France.
The Airbus A320 was reportedly flying from Barcelona to the German city of Dusseldorf when it came down in the Digne region of southern France.
It crashed on the massive Three Bishoprics in the Upper Bléone Valley.
The plane was carrying 144 passengers and six crew members when it crashed this morning.
French President Francois Hollande confirmed there were "no survivors" following the crash and expressed his "solidarity" with the victims.
He said there was likely to be a significant number of Germans on the flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
He added: "The accident happened in a zone that is particularly hard to access."
It is thought that the plane was operated by the German low-cost airline Germanwings and had initially climbed to 38,000 feet before before it started to descend and lost signal at 6,800 feet.
The firm this morning released a statement saying they had heard of the report, but had not yet confirmed it was one of their planes.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he understood between 142 and 150 people were on board and feared dead.
"The cause is at present unknown," he told reporters.
A spokesman for the DGAC aviation authority said the airplane crashed near the town of Barcelonnette about 100 km (65 miles) north of the French Riviera city of Nice.