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Rescue workers sift through debris on the mountain slopes Wednesday after the crash of the Germanwings Airbus A320 over the French Alps.(Photo: French Interior Ministry)
Two Americans were among the 150 people killed when a German airliner crashed into the Alps after making an expectedly abrupt descent, the CEO of Germanwings said Wednesday.
Germanwings' chief executive Thomas Winklelmann told reporters in Cologne that the dead also included 72 Germans and 35 Spaniards. There were two victims each from Australia, Argentina, Iran and Venezuela. One each came from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel. French officials said one Moroccan was almost among the victims.
French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy flew by helicopter to the operations base in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, near the crash site, to pay their respects to the victims and and to greet search teams.
Winkelmann said the list is not complete because the airlines is trying to contact relatives of 27 victims. He also said that the nationality of some victims is unclear, partly because of dual nationality. British officials have said they have confirmed that three British citizens were among the victims.
Spanish officials put the number of dead Spanish citizens at 49.
Among the passengers aboard the Airbus A320 were two infants, two opera singers and 16 German high school students, French officials said. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades.
A photograph released by the French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis shows the cockpit voice recorder from the Germanwings Airbus A320 aircraft.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: BEA via AFP/Getty Images)
The list of nationalities was released as search and recovery operations resumed at the high-altitude site.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio on Wednesday that the cockpit voice recorder that was recovered on Tuesday, was damaged. He said it "must be reconstituted in the coming hours in order to be usable."
The second black box has not been recovered.
Government minister Segolene Royal said what happened during the minutes 10:30 and 10:31 a.m. was key to the investigation, the Associated Press reported, After that time, controllers were unable to make contact with the plane.
French Transport Secretary Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio that the government plans to release information from the recorder as soon as it can be verified.
Officials previously warned that due to the remoteness of the crash site and difficult weather conditions the operation could last for days. A full passenger list not been released, but the majority of those killed were German and Spanish nationals.
USA TODAY
Alps crash 'a picture of horror'
Germanwings said an accident is the most likely cause of the crash and the White House issued a statement on Tuesday saying that no link to terrorism had been found.
"We cannot completely rule out terrorism, but it is not considered the most likely explanation at the moment," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve tells French media. "We need to let the investigation do its work."
Germany's interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, likewise told reporters Wednesday that there is "no concrete evidence that third parties were involved in the causes of the crash," Reuters reports.
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Even in developing nations, the risk is only one death in one million flights. Image courtesy AP Jason Allen
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