Lufthansa promises to continue set safety as top priority

Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings whose A320 flight crashed in southern France, said on Wednesday that the airline would continue to set safety as its top priority and make all efforts to help relatives of victims.

"Safety aviation is not a given," said Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa's chief executive, in a video statement, calling the crash on Tuesday a tragedy that "we worked so hard against" and hoped "we will never experience".

"This is why this terrible accident hits us, the Lufthansa, even more," he said, promising that his company would continue to set safety as its top priority, and to make sure that flying is again made even safer.

The Germanwings flight 4U9525 crashed in southern French Alps en route from Spain's Barcelona to Germany's Duesseldorf on Tuesday with 144 passengers and six crew members on board. No survivors were expected.

Causes of the crash remained unclear. Investigators from the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU) and experts from Lufthansa, Germanwings and Airbus were dispatched to the crash site for investigation.

Spohr was earlier cited by media as saying that it was inexplicable that an aircraft with perfect conditions and experienced pilots would crash.

According to Germanwings, the captain of the misfortune plane worked for Lufthansa and Germanwings for 10 years and had accumulated more than 6,000 flight hours. The crashed aircraft had completed 58,300 flight hours and accepted its last routine check on Monday.

Spohr said in the video statement that Lufthansa would help relatives of passengers and crew members "in whichever way we can around the world".

Earlier on Wednesday, Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann announced that two special flights would be arranged on Thursday to send relatives of passengers from Barcelona and Duesseldorf to southern France. Another flight would took families of the six crew members to France. Endit