Two babies and a group of sixteen school children are among those believed to be dead following a plane crash in the French Alps earlier today. The Germanwings Airbus A320 was travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf when it crashed in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in southern France earlier today, with all 144 passengers and six crew presumed dead. It is believed that a group of German schoolchildren were on the plane and returning from a school exchange to Spain at the time of the crash. Reports emerging from the site have suggested that debris was found at an altitude of around 2,000 metres (6,500ft), and that the remoteness of the area meant "an extremely long and difficult" search operation was to be expected. According to The Independent, Eric Heraud of the French Civil Aviation said that the plane never sent out a distress signal and lost radio contact at 10.30am this morning. “The aircraft did not itself make a distress call but it was the combination of the loss of radio contact and the aircraft’s descent which led the controller to implement the distress phase. The 'distress' phase is the third and most serious of three stages of alerts used to help coordinate rescue efforts when an aircraft is considered in difficulty." It has been stated that there is no suggestion of a terrorist link at this stage of the investigation. Sky News is also reporting that the black box belonging to the plane has now been recovered. Photo via The Guardian