Plane crash in France kills 150

An Airbus A320 of German airline Germanwings lands at an airport in Hamburg, northern Germany in this file photo taken on March 7, 2014. / AP-Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung

One hundred and fifty people were killed when a passenger jet crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday.

The Airbus A320, operated by German low-cost airline Germanwings, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, was traveling from Spain to Germany when it crashed near a ski resort in a remote part of the Alps.

The French transport ministry said there were 144 passengers and six crew on board. There were no survivors.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said crash debris had been found.

It is unclear whether there were Korean passengers on the plane.

"We are checking if the victims include Korean people," a Korean foreign ministry official said. "No Korean victims have been reported as of 6 a.m. Wednesday."

French President Francois Hollande said: "I want to express my solidarity to the family of the victims. It is a mourning we have to go through because it is a tragedy that has happened on our soil."

The ill-fated plane did not make a distress call before the crash, according to French aviation authorities.

"It's an area that is snowbound, inaccessible to (ground) vehicles, but which could be overflown by helicopters," France’s junior transport minister, Alain Vidalies, said.