A rescue helicopter from the French Gendarmerie flies over the snow covered French Alps during a search and rescue operation near to the crash site of an Airbus A320, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March 25, 2015.JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER/Reuters
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French investigators cracked open a mangled black box and retrieved some audio from its cockpit voice recorder Wednesday, seeking to find out why a German plane dropped unexpectedly and smashed into a rugged Alpine mountain, killing all 150 people on board.
The orange cockpit voice recorder – dented, twisted and scarred by the impact – is considered the key to understanding why the Germanwings A320 lost radio contact with air traffic controllers over the southern French Alps during a routine flight Tuesday from Barcelona to Duesseldorf before crashing.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
- How many on board? Two pilots, four flight attendants and 144 passengers
- Type of plane: Airbus A320
- Flight number: 4U 9525
- Where was it going? Left Barcelona at 9:55 a.m. local time and was supposed to land in Dusseldorf two hours later
- Where did it crash? Near Méolans-Revel, France, a remote region on the foothills of the Alps
THE BLACK BOXES: WHAT THEY COULD TELL US
Remi Jouty, director of the French aviation investigative agency, said some audio had been recovered from the voice recorder by Wednesday afternoon, including sounds and voices. He said it was too early to draw any conclusions from the recorder, which takes audio feeds from four microphones in the cockpit and records all the conversations between the pilots, air traffic controllers as well as any noises.
Jouty said the plane was flying "until the end." He said the final communication from the plane was a routine message about permission to continue on its route.
French President Francois Hollande, meanwhile, said the case for the plane's second black box had been found but not its contents. That was the flight data recorder, which captures 25 hours' worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane.
(More: Paul Koring on the mystery of the plane's abrupt descent)
THE DEAD: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THEM
Victims included two babies, two opera singers, an Australian mother and her adult son vacationing together, and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain. These are the known nationalities of the victims so far:
- 72 Germans
- 35 Spaniards, according to Germanwings; Spain says there may be up to 49
- Three British, confirmed by the government, which says there may be more; Germanwings could confirm only one British
- Three Kazakhs
- Two each from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Iran, Japan, Mexico and Venezuela
- One each from Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Israel, Morocco and Turkey
(In Germany: Joanna Slater on a German town's "darkest day")
THE CRASH SITE: LEADERS GATHER TO MOURN
Bereaved families made their way to the southern French Alps, as did the leaders of France, Germany and Spain, since most of the passengers were German and Spanish.
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived by helicopters on a mountain meadow whipped by strong wind. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy joined them at the scene in the French town of Seynes-les-Alpes.
Lufthansa said two charter flights to France will be made available for family members who want to get as close as they can to the crash site. Locals in Seyne-les-Alpes offered to host the bereaved families because of a shortage of rooms to rent.
Germanwings itself cancelled several flights Wednesday because some crews declared themselves unfit to fly after losing colleagues. "The management completely understands this because we are a small family. Everyone knows everybody inside Germanwings, so it is a big shock for employees," said CEO Thomas Winkelmann.