Germanwings plane crash: New information suggests that the descent took 18 minutes, not 8 »

A lot of initial reporting on the Germanwings flight crash in the French Alps has been discredited as more information has surfaced.. The initial report yesterday that a mayday distress call was placed was wrong.. And then another issue was reported, that the descent of Flight 9525 took 8 minutes. Instead, new information suggests, it took 18!

John Lichfield with the UK INDEPENDENT reports this for history:

The French environment and transport minister, Ségolène Royal,  said that the crew of the Airbus A320 had stopped responding on radio at 10.30am yesterday when the aircraft was over the Mediterranean.
The aircraft slammed into the sheer side of a mountain in the French Alps soon after 10.48am. For those 18 minutes, it gradually shed height from 28,000 feet to less than 2,000 feet without transmitting any form of distress signal.

This information is also being reported: The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said that so-called “black box” had been damaged in the crash but was “usable”. .. For some reason, I hesitate buying into this at this point. With the number of times official stories have already changed, I wouldn’t doubt a change in this factoid either.

At this point, the results from yesterday’s crash are horrific.. one family last three generations of people. A school lost 16 of its best and brightest children.. The heartache extends to the United States with news that two passengers on the doomed flight were from here..

And a few more things of note as well:

Three generations of one family dead in plane crash..
Mystery: What happened on Flight 9525?
Two people from the United States were on flight..
Weather an issue in search ..