Scores feared dead as planes collide

Scores of people were feared dead today after a Tupolev 154 and a Boeing 757 airliner collided over the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The planes crashed into one another at 11.43pm yesterday (10.43pm Irish time), said Wolfgang Wenzel, a police spokesman for Baden-Wuerttemberg in Tuebingen.

Wenzel said the Boeing was a freight plane carrying only two pilots, both of whom were believed to have been killed.

An air traffic controller from the airport in Frankfurt, who declined to be named, said the Tupolev was a passenger plane for Bashkirian Airlines. It was not immediately clear how many people were on board that plane, which can carry up to 164 passengers.

The air controller also identified the freight aircraft as flying for packaged delivery service, DHL.

Burning wreckage was scattered for about 20 miles from the point where the plane went down over Ueberlingen, 135 miles south of Frankfurt and just north of Lake Constance, Wenzel said.

Dozens of people flooded police stations in the area with calls describing seeing a large ball of fire in the sky at the time of the crash, Wenzel said.

Axel Raab, of German air traffic control, told Sky News the freight plane was flying from Italy to Belgium on a northerly heading while the Russian aircraft was heading east to west from Moscow to Barcelona.

‘‘We got information that 80 people were on board the Tupolev 154 and two people, the pilot and co-pilot were on board the Boeing 757,’’ said Mr Raab.

The collision happened at about 36,000ft above Lake Constance, near the Swiss border.

Airspace in the area is controlled by Swiss air traffic controllers, called Skyguide, said Mr Raab.

‘‘We don’t know who is responsible for the accident, whether it was pilot or air traffic controllers’ error,’’ he added.