A number of British nationals are thought to have been on board the Germanwings aircraft which crashed in the French Alps, says Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
All 150 people on the jet are thought to have been killed after it plummeted into a remote mountain range and "disintegrated".
Recovery teams have been flown in by helicopter and one of the black box flight recorders - crucial in piecing together what happened - has been found.
The debris appeared to have been spread over a wide area. Pictures showed many fragments as well as a wheel and part of a fuselage thought to be from the aircraft.
No survivors have been found and the recovery operation was later called off as night fell. It will resume in the morning.
The Airbus A320 plane was en route from Barcelona in Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany, when it came down on Tuesday morning less than an hour into its flight at Meolans-Revels, between Barcelonnette and Digne.
A total of 144 passengers, including two babies, as well as two pilots and four cabin crew were on board the 24-year-old jet, operated by Lufthansa's budget airline.
Officials said flight 4U 9525, which took off at 10.01am (9.01am UK time), had started descending one minute after reaching its cruising height.
It then plummeted from 38,000ft to 6,800ft in eight minutes before crashing.
French aviation authorities said the plane did not issue a distress call and had lost radio contact with air traffic controllers at 10.53am.
Germanwings said the plane had a normal service at Dusseldorf on Monday and its last major check-up was in the summer of 2013. Experts have said the A320 has a relatively good safety record.
Meanwhile, some Lufthansa crews are refusing to fly "for personal reasons" which has led to a number of flights being cancelled, the airline admitted.
The company said it was working on the assumption that the crash was an accident and any other theory was "speculation".
German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was flown over the the site and called it "a picture of horror".
Gilbert Sauvan, from the local council, told Les Echos newspaper: "The plane is disintegrated. The largest debris is the size of a car."
And Jean Louis Bietrix, a hiker who was accompanying a rescue team to the site, said: "There are no pieces anymore, there is nothing, there is nothing. The plane has totally disappeared."
Mr Hammond said: "It is sadly likely that there were some British nationals on board the flight. We are providing consular assistance and will give further help as more information becomes available."
There were believed to be 67 people from Germany on the aircraft, including 16 students and two teachers from the same school in the town of Haltern. The youngsters had been returning from a school exchange in Spain.
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Gallery: School Head Weeps After 16 Students Die
Mourners gathered outside Joseph-Koenig in the German town of Haltern after news 16 children and two teachers from the school died in the French Alps plane crash.
School Principal Ulrich Wessel grieves with students in front of the secondary school.
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