Five New Zealanders feared dead after Air NZ plane crashes
8:42AM Friday Nov 28, 2008
An Air New Zealand A320. Photo / AP
There are grave concerns for five Air New Zealand staff on board the Airbus A320 which crashed off the coast of France early this morning.
Air New Zealand Chief Executive Officer Rob Fyfe told a media conference this morning the aircraft had been leased by German charter company XL for the last two years.
He said two XL pilots were on board with one Air New Zealand captain, three Air New Zealand engineers and one Air New Zealand CAA inspector.
One body had been recovered Mr Fyfe said.
"At this stage we don't know the status of personnel," he said.
"We have grave concerns for the situation".
A spokesperson for the Marine Department in Toulon told
Le Monde newspaper: "There are no survivors."
Air New Zealand confirmed the aircraft was on lease to a European based company.
Mr Fyfe said the plane was being operated by the leasee and was due to return to service with Air New Zealand next month.
Radio New Zealand reported that the German company had just ended its lease and the plane's cabin was being reconfigured to back to Air NZ layout
The plane plunged into the Mediterranean sea 20 kilometres east of the French city of Perpignan, near the border with Spain, at around 4.30pm local time (4.30am NZT), according to a communications officer at the headquarters of the government representative in the region.
A member of the local government in Roussillon told France Info: "The plane, while coming into land at Canet-en-Roussillon had started to turn and went straight into the sea."
TV1 said the plane was coming into land when it crashed approximately 5km offshore. The station reported three bodies had been found.
First Officer Sandrine Parro of the Regional Operational Centre for Monitoring and Rescue (CROSS) for the Mediterranean said the plane had taken off from Perpignan airport with seven people on board.
Five launches, two helicopters and a patrol plane have been dispatched to the area of the crash, Parro told The Associated Press.
"The fuselage has been located. The rescue operations will determine if there are any survivors," she added.
Air New Zealand owns 10 Airbus A320s and leases two more. They are used on its Tasman and Pacific Island routes and seat around 150 passengers.
The list price of an A320 is around NZ$100 million.
The A320 has had a good safety record since it began flying in 1988. The aircraft is used in more than 70 countries.
One of the worst accidents involving an A320 occurred last year in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when a TAM plane overran the runway on landing, striking an office building. All 181 passengers and six crew on board plus a further 12 people on the ground were killed
Today's crash in France comes exactly 29 years after the Mt Erebus disaster, when an Air NZ flight TE901 flew into Antarctica's highest mountain killing 257 people on board.
My sincere condolences to the Family, friends and workmates ..... very shocking news so close to Christmas.