Crash jets 'a ball of fire'

Wreckage is scattered over a wide area

Eyewitnesses have spoken of a huge fireball as the Tupolev 154 and the Boeing 757 collided over the Swiss-German border.

"I was lying in my bed, saw a ball of fire in the sky and ran out on to the balcony, said Klaus-Dieter Schindler, the caretaker of a school in the village of Owingen.

There was a noise like loud thunder, then this orange fireball plunged through the night sky

Alfred Knoedler, TV reporter

"Behind the forest it looked like a firework display was going off.

"In the glow of the fire I saw wreckage falling out of the sky. It looked like black rain."

Others who saw the immediate aftermath of the accident reported seeing the wreckage falling in three sections.

"I saw a flash in the sky, and an incredible bang," an unnamed eyewitness told the Associated Press news agency.

"I saw that it could not be a thunderstorm and the next moment I saw the first part of the plane falling down from the sky - an orange glowing part of the plane.

Blinding flash

"There was a total of three sections which slowly fell down to the ground. The last section that hit the ground exploded with a very blinding flash."

Another added: "We were sitting on the balcony when I saw a bright orange light and then there was a bang and then three glowing sections of a plane fell down from the sky slowly.

"Shortly after that we saw the blue lights of the rescue teams from Stuttgart and Seingen on the highway."

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

Across the area of Ueberlingen we found sections of the wreckage, and bodies so far, scattered all over

Siegfried Tann, regional official

A German television reporter, Alfred Knoedler, also saw the explosion.

"There was a noise like loud thunder, then this orange fireball plunged through the night sky."

Regional official Siegfried Tann said the falling wreckage had damaged houses, some of which were on fire.

He said that a section of forest was also burning.

Search under way

"Across the area of Ueberlingen we found sections of the wreckage, and bodies so far, scattered all over," he said.

"We have to expect more bodies and as soon as we have more light we will know more.

"We have asked for helicopters with heat-seeking lights.

"Police and firefighters are leading the operation and we are providing support for the emergency teams in Ueberlingen."

Reports say that at least 70 people on board the two aircraft have been killed, but there are no casualties on the ground.