German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was going Wednesday to the French Alpine region where a German passenger plane crashed, killing all 150 people on board.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, she said her foreign and transport ministers, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Alexander Dobrindt, will arrive in scene crash, in a mountain range known as "Les Trois Eveches", later on Tuesday.
"I myself will travel there tomorrow to get an impression and speak with the local authorities," she told reporters in Berlin.
Merkel described the news as "a shock which has plunged us into deep mourning in Germany, France and Spain."