PARIS, March 24 -- An Airbus A320 plane of a German low-cost airline with 150 people on board crashed on Tuesday in southern France, French authorities have confirmed.

The aircraft, operated by Lufthansa's budget airline Germanwings, crashed in the French Alps while flying from Spain's Barcelona to Germany's Dusseldorf.

The number of victims on board, 144 passengers and six crew members, has been confirmed by Germanwings in a joint statement with its parent company Lufthansa.

The passengers on board include 82 men and 60 women along with two babies, said the gendarmes on site, cited by BFMTV, while Germanwings' CEO Thomas Winkelmann confirmed 67 German citizens on board.

According to French Civil Aviation Authority, the crew of the flight 4U9525 didn't send a distress call as previously reported by the media, and that it was the air traffic controllers who declared the aircraft was in state of distress because of the loss of contact with the crew.

French President Francois Hollande said in his brief statement in the Elysee before meeting Spanish King Felipe VI that the crash happened in a snow covered are where it is "particularly difficult to access".

On BFMTV, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said that he expected "an extremely long and extremely difficult" search and rescue operation because of the conditions on the crash site where only helicopters could reach.

Spanish King Felipe VI, who is on a state visit to France, announced he decided to cut short his visit due to the plane crash and return to Spain.

The King said there were no signs of survivors from the ill-fated jet crash. Earlier, Spanish government confirmed there were 45 Spanish citizens among the victims.

Felipe VI also sent his condolences to the families of the victims, as well to German and Spanish governments.

French President Francois Hollande said there might be no French citizens on board, while he confirmed there were, apart from German and Spanish citizens, Turkish passengers on board the plane.

French government also activated the interministerial crisis cell after the crash. The Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve and Germany's Ambassador to France Susanne Wasum-Rainer are already at the crash site.

French Ecology Minister Segolene Royal and Spanish and German transport ministers are also expected to arrive later in the afternoon.

In a press conference at the crash site, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said "an exceptional operation is undergoing", adding that there is little chance of any survivors.

He said that 300 gendarmes, about 300 firemen, and volunteer firmen were taking part in the search and rescue operation on the crash site of the ill-fated plane.

In an interview with BFMTV, Councillor of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Christophe Castner, who flied over the crash site with Interior Minister Cazeneuve, said "there were no more pieces of the aircraft, but only debris."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday afternoon in an address to the media that she would travel on Wednesday to the crash site.

Speaking to the French National Assembly, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said "at this point, no hypothesis can be excluded".

A joint investigation by France, Germany and Spain is opened to find out the reasons for the tragic crash.

The aircraft that crashed was an Airbus A320 which accommodates 150 passengers in a typical two-class cabin layout, and has a 6,150 km range.

The aircraft was delivered to Lufthansa from the production line in 1991. It had accumulated approximately 58,300 flight hours in some 46,700 flights. It was powered by CFM 56-5A1 engines, said Airbus Group in a statement.

An Airbus go-team of technical advisors will be dispatched to provide full assistance to French BEA in charge of the investigation, added the European aircraft manufacturer.