Dubai: The crash in the French Alps on Tuesday is likely to be the most fatal in at least three decades in France and is the first for Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings. The A320 single-aisle jet, an industry workhorse used on shorter distances, is Airbus’s most popular model, and the planes are typically operated with about 150 passengers. Germanwings said 144 passengers and six crew were on the plane.

French air traffic controllers in the region declared an emergency at 10:47 a.m. as they saw the plane descending rapidly, said Eric Heraud, a spokesman for French civil aviation authority DGAC. The plane plummeted from 38,000 feet to 5,000 feet while flying over the town of Barcelonnette in the Alpes de Haute-Provence region, he said.

Flight-tracking service FlightAware showed the plane cruising on a northeasterly heading at about 38,000 feet before it suddenly began a steep descent, shedding more than 25,000 feet of altitude in seven minutes.

“Although we did track the airplane in the descent to 11,400 feet, the final position reflects the end of our flight tracking coverage for this flight and does not indicate the accident site,” FlightAware Chief Executive Officer Daniel Baker said. “Only the French government will definitively provide that information.”

France’s accident investigator, BEA, is opening an investigation immediately, said spokeswoman Martine Del Bono. The organiaation has oversight for all air crashes on French territory and would also participate in any investigation involving a plane made by a French company

The crash is the deadliest on French soil since 1981, when a DC-9 jetliner flown by Inex Adria Aviopromet went down near Mont San-Pietro and killed 180 people, according to data compiled by Aviation Safety Network, a project of the Alexandria, Virginia-based Flight Safety Foundation.

German, French and Spanish authorities have set up crisis- response teams, and Hollande said he’s coordinating efforts with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government. Merkel “is deeply shocked by the German aircraft’s crash,” Steffen Seibert, her chief spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. Merkel has canceled other appointments and will keep up-to-date on developments in the hours ahead, he said.

Germanwings operates Deutsche Lufthansa’s European routes outside of the German carrier’s main Frankfurt and Munich hubs. The move was designed for Lufthansa to better compete against budget carriers in Europe. Lufthansa, like its European peers, has come under pressure to lower costs as more people opt for no-frills airlines on shorter distances.

The plane went down in rugged terrain, according to Hollande, who is coordinating a crisis response with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The actual crash site is at a higher altitude in the Le Vernet, near Prads-Haute-Bleon, about 80 kilometres northwest of Nice and 40kms west of the Italian border, in a region of Provence popular with hikers and campers in the summer.

Airbus said it’s focusing “all efforts” on assessing the situation, and that it’s been informed about an accident that involves one of the Toulouse, France-based products. The A320 aircraft is by far Airbus’s most widely flown model, and the aircraft has been popular with carriers around the world because it serves a key segment of the market and is equipped with advanced technologies such as fly-by-wire controls.