French Domestic Airbus With 96 Aboard Crashes; 9 Survive

A French Airbus A-320 carrying 96 people crashed Monday night in snow and fog on a wooded ridge in eastern France. At least nine survivors, including a young girl, were found in the wreckage after a four-hour search.

The girl, age 2 or 3, emerged without serious injury from the crash of the state-run Air Inter flight, and at least one of the six crew members also survived, police said.

Efforts were under way to remove injured people who were still in the wreckage, police said early today.

The plane was en route from Lyon to Strasbourg when radio contact was lost shortly before the scheduled landing at 7:25 p.m., officials said. Just before midnight, officials located the crash site in the Vosges Mountains near Mont Sainte-Odile, 30 miles southwest of Strasbourg.

Air Inter, which works closely with Air France, said in a statement that it had no indication what caused the crash. The plane, put into service in December, 1988, had no record of previous mechanical trouble, the airline said.

Rain and snow slowed the search by about 500 people in the sparsely populated area of dense pine forests and rugged hills ranging from about 2,000 feet to 3,000 feet above sea level. Logging roads provided the only access to much of the fog-shrouded area.

Flight IT-5148, which left Lyon at 6:30 p.m., was carrying 90 passengers and a crew of six, Air Inter said.

The airline set up a center at Lyon’s Satolas airport for relatives of those aboard the plane. Few details about the passengers were available, although most reportedly were business travelers.

The Airbus A-320 is a twin-turbofan plane designed for short- or medium-range flights that went into service in 1988. Its capacity ranges from 130 to 179 passengers. Two A-320s have crashed since the aircraft when into service.

An A-320 crashed in a forest June 26, 1988, while executing a low pass during an air show at Habsheim, France. Three passengers were killed.

On Feb. 14, 1990, a 3-month-old A-320 crashed while preparing for landing in Bangalore, India, killing 92 people.

Airbus blamed pilot error in both accidents, but some aviation officials suggested a computer malfunction. The A-320 is the only commercial aircraft that uses computers capable of operating all flight controls.

The worst plane accident in France occurred March 3, 1974, when 360 people died in the crash of a Turkish Airlines DC-10 near Paris.