Large jets collide over Germany

The debris was scattered across the countryside

Two large jet aircraft have crashed over southern Germany, reportedly killing 71 people on board and scattering burning debris over tens of kilometres.

The sky became bright all of a sudden. - it looked as if the sky was on fire

Klaus Barinka
Eyewitness

The Tupolev 154 airliner hit a Boeing 757 cargo plane belonging to freight company DHL at an altitude of about 12,000 metres (36,000 feet), said a police spokesman .

There is as yet no indication of why the crash happened, but rescue workers have recovered a black box flight recorder from one of the planes.

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On Breakfast we spoke to:

Click here to hear our interview with Axel Gietz.

Axel Gietz, DHL Spokesman, Brussels. He said:

The accident happened shortly before midnight. The DHL plane was en route to Brussels, and the Russian plane was en route to Barcelona. I was at a press conference within the last half hour, where it was said the Air Traffic Zurich controllers repeatedly contacted the Russian pilot who did not respond. The DHL pilots were then contacted at the last minute but it was too late. This is the first time this has happened in our 33 year history. Both our pilots who were manning the plane couldn't have been more experienced.

Click here to watch our Chris Yates interview.

Chris Yates of Flight International. He said:

The evidence shows that the Russian aircraft misheard about changing levels. Air traffic controllers use English as the standard language. Perhaps in some parts of the world it is not as good. It has to be said something needs to be done. The traffic collision alert system can give reasonable advance warning, it is not entirely clear if the Russian plane had this.

Click here to hear Alfred Knoedler.

Alfred Knoedler, a radio journalist gave us his eyewitness account:

I saw a bright light in the sky, and thought is was a UFO. It was the two planes which had collided 36,000 feet up in the sky. This is a tourist area. There are many dead bodies around, they are covered, and they are of girls and children. The Minister of traffic gave a conference recently and said there had been some misunderstanding on part of the Russian pilot, they were on the same altitude.

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Police have so far found 11 bodies on the ground, but there is little hope that anyone could have survived.

Stopover

The crash happened over the town of Ueberlingen at 2343 (2143GMT) on Monday, with the debris of the Tupolev scattered across woods and farmland, and the Boeing crashing into Lake Konstanz.

Rescue workers have already found bodies

The Tupolev has been identified as belonging to Bashkirian Airlines, a Russian regional air company.

It was reportedly carrying 57 passengers and 12 crew.

According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry, flight BTS2937 was en route from Moscow's Domodedovo airport to Barcelona.

It had reportedly made a stopover in Munich shortly before the crash.

The airline has eight Tu-154s in its fleet.

The DHL cargo plane was en route from Bahrain to Brussels, and had also made a stopover, at Bergamo in northern Italy. It had only the two pilots on board.

There are reports that the pilot of the Boeing tried to avoid the impact at the last moment and failed.

Mid-air collisions between large planes are extremely rare, because most planes carry avoidance equipment that sounds an alarm or automatically changes course, if another plane is too close.

Air traffic control error will be investigated as a possible cause of the crash.

German air traffic control said that the planes had been in Swiss airspace and were the responsibility of air controllers there.

The Swiss authorities have not commented so far.

'Enormous flash'

Pieces of the planes have been found scattered for kilometres around the crash site.

A school, a farm and other buildings are also reported to be on fire.

Eyewitnesses reports having seen fire light up the sky.

"The sky became bright all of a sudden. It looked as if the sky was on fire," said Klaus Barinka, 42, a ferry boat captain working at Lake Konstanz.