A Germanwings plane carrying 150 people has crashed in the French Alps on its way from Barcelona to Duesseldorf. <br />The Airbus A320 - flight 4U 9525 - went down between Digne and Barcelonnette. There are no survivors, officials say. <br />The "black box" flight recorder has been found, France's interior minister says. The cause of the crash is not known and the plane sent no distress signal during an eight-minute descent. <br />Among the passengers were 16 German pupils returning from an exchange trip. <br />Germanwings, a low-cost airline owned by Germany's main carrier Lufthansa, has an excellent safety record. French, Spanish and German leaders have expressed shock. <br />A recovery team reached the site, in a remote mountain ravine, earlier on Tuesday. Their work was called off in the evening and will resume at first light on Wednesday, the French interior ministry said. <br />Bruce Robin, a prosecutor from Marseille, told the Reuters news agency that he had seen the wreckage of the aircraft from a helicopter.
