Seven dead or missing after Air New Zealand jet crashes into Mediterranean

An Airbus A320 jet belonging to Air New Zealand crashed in the Mediterranean sea while undergoing tests, leaving the seven crew dead or missing, officials said.

The jet crashed in the sea near the French city of Perpignan from where it had taken off for the test flight.

Emergency services said three bodies had been recovered and four people were still missing. The wreckage was spread over several hundred metres (yards), a regional government official told AFP.

The jet, built in 2005, had been leased to German charter firm, XL Airways, since 2006. Airline spokesman Asger Schubert said the two pilots in the jet were German and worked for XL Airways Germany.

The regional prefecture said the five other people on board were New Zealand nationals.

A major rescue operation continued into the night with a surveillance plane, two rescue helicopters and five ships scouring the seas around the crash site about 3.5 nautical miles (2.5 kilometres) from the shore.

About 20 specialist frogmen were taking part in the operation.

The French navy sent ships to the zone in a bid to find the wreckage and find the black box flight recorders.

The jet had been undergoing servicing at EAS Industries in Perpignan and had been flying circuits for 90 minutes before it crashed, an emergency services spokesman said.

Six French aviation accident investigators and two from Germany were being sent to help an inquiry with experts from the French civil aviation authority (DGAC) and Airbus.

Airbus said it delivered the jet in July 2005 and it had carried out 2,800 flights with about 7,000 hours of use since then. The constructor gave no details of the accident.

There are about 3,700 A320 jets in service with almost 3,000 more to be delivered.

Service accidents are quite rare. An Airbus A340 crashed on November 15, 2007 at Toulouse-Blagnac airport causing three serious injuries.

You must sign in to comment