Economy of Germany

"We are really deeply shocked and I wouldn't not have been able to imagine that the situation would have got even worse" said the Chief executive of Lufthansa, parent company of Germanwings Carsten Spohr, at the company's press conference.
Highlights of the conference:

28-year-old Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of the fateful Germanwings flight, was a relatively inexperienced pilot, with only 630 hours of flight time.

He began working for Germanwings (a Lufthansa affiliate) since September 2013, but it is yet unknown where he flew before.

German co-pilot "intentionally crashed aircraft"

PARIS -- The co-pilot of a Germanwings passenger plane that crashed in France earlier this week "intentionally brought the aircraft down," investigators have announced.

There are no indications that the incident, that killed 150 passengers and crew, was a terrorist act, they added on Thursday.

French aviation experts examining the black box and recordings from the Germanwings flight believe that the crash may have been a deliberate, suicidal choice by the pilot in the cockpit. The audio reports show that one of the pilots, the more experienced of the two, remained locked outside the cockpit.

BELGRADE - No Serbian nationals were on board the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps, killing all 144 passengers and six crew members, the Serbian Foreign Ministry told Tanjug on Wednesday.

"Based on the list of names that we have seen, there were no Serbian nationals on board," the ministry's press service said.

A number of pilots at German low-cost airline Germanwings refused to fly Wednesday following the deadly crash in the French Alps, saying they were mourning the victims of the doomed aircraft.
      

French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived near the site of the German airliner that crashed in the French Alps.
      
The three leaders, looking sombre and dressed in black, met rescue workers and police outside the crisis centre set up in the wake of Tuesday's disaster, in which 150 people were killed.

Hundreds of people are taking part in a rescue operation in the French Alps after a Germanwings airplane with 150 people on board went down near Barcelonette in Southern France while en route from Spain to Düsseldorf.

All 144 passengers and 6 crew are feared dead, and the EU Commission has declared three days of mourning over the incident.

The first pictures from the region in the French Alps near the spot where the Airbus A320 of Germanwings airline (low-cost subsidiary of Lufthansa) crashed on Tuesday, carrying 144 passengers and six crew members have been released.

Many rescue services and helicopters participate to the search.

Prime Minister Victor Ponta stated, on Tuesday, that he is shocked by the news of the air crash in France and declared that his thoughts go towards the families and close ones of the victims of the crash.

Photo credit: (c) Alex MICSIK / AGERPRES PHOTO