Airliner crash recovery arduous

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France – The ravine echoes with helicopter rotors, the scrape of metal on stone, the rumble of sliding stones and rocky debris as the remnants of Germanwings Flight 9525 dislodge from the mountainside.

The somber mission to recover the remains of 150 people killed when their plane slammed full speed into the Col de Mariaud is not a quiet one, and evidence can be gathered only when the mountains cooperate.

From 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m., while the light is good, the helicopters ferry the crews into the ravine. It is too steep to land, so the 40 crewmembers are winched down singly or in pairs with packs bulging with clear plastic bags, red and yellow evidence tags, and the ropes they will use to keep each other from slipping when the black Alpine stone crumbles beneath their feet. Each investigator is linked to a local mountaineer, familiar with the terrain and with the skills to keep them safe.

Few pieces are larger than a car door. Most are smaller. And with each step the recovery workers make, crucial pieces of evidence slide inexorably downward. Some slip into a mountain brook fed by the snow that has only just begun melting in the French Alps.

“We have not found a single body intact,” Col. Patrick Touron, one of France’s leading forensic investigators, said Friday from Seyne-les-Alpes. “DNA will be the determining element that will lead to identification.”

Between 400 and 600 biological elements have been retrieved and five scientists are in Seyne-les-Alpes to speed the process, he said. The families who arrived during the week provided objects such as toothbrushes, which belonged to the deceased, and some gave their own DNA samples to help cross-reference the forensic information found in the remains.

When human remains are found, forensic scientists have been taking a DNA sample immediately, from fears they could further decompose, Touron said. Jewelry and dental information are also key to the identification process, he said.

Touron noted the bodies would be returned to the families as soon as possible, but warned the process would be long.

Traveling by foot on the hiking paths that wind through the Alps, it’s possible to reach the site in about an hour. Police all-terrain vehicles have barred the way since the Tuesday crash.

Each load must be carried away by helicopter, and the operation halts at sundown and with the onset of rain or wind. It is likely to last weeks.

The plane’s first black box, containing the cockpit recordings, was recovered within hours of the crash.

Somewhere on the mountain is the plane’s second black box. It contains nearly 25 hours’ worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in the plane. Recovery crews know this – and the recovery of the bodies – is their priority.