Recovery operation resumes at site of Germanwings plane crash

A search and recovery operation has resumed in the southern French Alps after Tuesday’s crash of a Germanwings plane with 150 people on board.

Officials warn the operation could last for days in a remote mountain ravine between Digne and Barcelonnette.

The leaders of Germany, France and Spain are due to visit the crash site.

The Airbus A320 – flight 4U 9525 – from Barcelona to Duesseldorf crashed after an eight-minute rapid descent, officials say. There were no survivors.

Officials believe 67 of those on board the plane were German citizens, including 16 pupils returning from an exchange trip.

More than 40 passengers were believed to be Spanish and the flight was also carrying citizens of Australia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Germanwings, a low-cost airline owned by Germany’s main carrier Lufthansa, has an excellent safety record. French, Spanish and German leaders have expressed shock.

Using helicopters, a recovery team reached the site on Tuesday and later found the one of the two “black box” flight recorders – a key step in establishing what caused the crash.

The interior ministry confirmed on Wednesday it was the cockpit voice recorder and had been damaged in the crash, although it could still provide information.

Finding the second box – the flight data recorder – will be a key aim of Wednesday’s search operation.

A team of police officers spent the night on the mountain, securing the site.

French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy are expected to visit the crash scene later.

Rajoy has already declared three days of national mourning in Spain.

Footage shot from a helicopter on Tuesday showed small plane parts scattered on the rocky mountainside.

“The site is a picture of horror,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after being flown over the ravine.

“Everything is pulverised. The largest pieces of debris are the size of a small car. No-one can access the site from the ground,” Gilbert Sauvan, president of the general council Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told the Associated Press.

The aircraft went from a normal cruising height of 38,000ft to crashing in the mountains in just eight minutes.

Experts believe that the steep descent means the pilots were coping with something so catastrophic they never had time to radio in a mayday, or turn to find the nearest runway.

The plane began descending one minute after it reached its cruising height and continued to lose altitude for eight minutes, Germanwings managing director Thomas Winkelmann told reporters.

He said the aircraft lost contact with French air traffic controllers at 10:53am at an altitude of about 6,000ft.

The plane did not send out a distress signal, officials said.

The White House has said there is no evidence so far of a terror attack. A Lufthansa official said they were assuming for the time being that the crash had been caused by an accident.

The Airbus A320 is a single-aisle passenger jet popular for short- and medium-haul flights.