up first, the breaking news the german plane crash mystery becomes an international tragedy as we get more details emerging about the passengers. we've learned two americans were among those on board. the crash victims were from at least 15 countries, most were from germany and spain. but there were others there from great britain, the netherlands, belgium, denmark, israel japan, iran australia, colombia and here in the united states. a french official says investigators are begun the process of identifying the remains of the victims and says that will take days and dna comparisons could take weeks. the french president, francois hollande the german chance lore angela merkel and the spanish prime minister mariano rajoy were met at the staging area. investigators now working to

retrieve information from the plane's cockpit voice recorder after removing the damaged casing they say they have found what they described as usable audio files. we're getting details about the identities of the two americans on board flight 9525. let's go to our aviation correspondent rene marsh. rene what have you learned? >> wolf we now have the names of the two americans who were killed on board this aircraft. the first one, yvonne selke and her daughter, emily selke. we also know a little bit more about these fikt victims as well. emily selke was a student at drexel university and the university has confirmed to cnn they are aware of the death. you are looking at a picture of emily selke on your screen right now. her sorority gamma sigma sigma, posting on their facebook page their regards and memory for her saying quote, they are mourning the loss of their beautiful alumni.

we know the two are from nokesville virginia about 45 minutes outside of washington, d.c. they leave behind raymond selke who is the father of emily and the husband of yvonne. he spoke to cnn today and as you can imagine, wolf he says he is too distraught to talk. but the family will be issuing a statement later on today. wolf we also know that emily selke worked in the washington, d.c. area. and we have been in touch with her employer. they too, are mourning the loss of this young woman as well. >> what a tragedy. only two of those 150 souls on board that plane, all presumed lost. much more on the other victims coming up. let's talk a little bit about some of those other victims of germanwings flight 9525. they include two german opera singers, 54-year-old and a 34-year-old.

both fresh off a performance at barcelona. ♪ aby on board at the time. and also on board, a nurse and her 21-year-old son. the two were on a european vacation together. and on the day before the crash, the two celebrated carol's 68th birthday. here's the australian prime minister, tony abbott. >> our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and families of all those killed but particularly with the loved ones of the two australians who have lost their lives. >> the uk also is mourning

28-year-old andrew bramley. he spent a few days with friends in barcelona after finishing his first year studying hospitality and management. his mother is quoted as saying he was the best son, he was my world. and one high school in germany dealing with the unimaginable loss of 16 students and two teachers. the community gathering at a memorial outside the school. let's go there. cnn's fred pleitgen is in the hometown there in germany. what can you tell us about those students and those two teachers, fred? >> reporter: wolf it's an absolutely devastating scene here outside this school. you've got people coming here basically throughout the entire day laying down flowers, lighting candles, most of them standing in silence, some of them however, breaking out into tears. that's how much all this has hurt this community. this is a fairly small town about 37,000 to 38,000 people who live here. so virtually everybody who lives here knows someone affected by this.

earlier today i managed to speak to one young lady who said she knew every single one of the 16 students who were killed on that flight. and she said she was friends with many of them. and it really shows the agony many of these young people are going through right now. she said they had been making plans for the time when they returned. they had been making plans for the time after they graduate from high school and go to college. these were clearly young people who had their entire futures ahead of them. and it really shows how deeply this entire community, this entire town has been hurt by all this. there's a crisis center here in this town. it's being managed by the mayor. but even he is feeling very, very emotional about what's going on. have a look at what happened to him when i asked him about how things are going right now. >> i'm here and i can talk with people and with the parents and the brothers and sisters -- the only thing that i can do is to be here.

>> reporter: so we've been able to speak to some of the psychological counselors also here on the scene. they said in most cases it's just very important for the folks who have been affected by this to have a shoulder to lean on to have someone that they can talk to. and that's one of the reasons why those words from the mayor were so very important. one thing we're hearing more and more from folks here is they want information, they want to know exactly how this could happen and how it could that these many young people and these two teachers were killed on that flight coming back from a language exchange in spain. >> you've been covering the story from the beginning. tell me about the other lufthansa and germanwings pilots and flight attendants and others who are now refusing to work today because of -- they're concerned about the losses obviously but they're also concerned about safety, is that right? >> reporter: well it's really

unclear at this point in time. it's a very interesting topic. it is being talked a lot about here in germany and internationally as well. there were indeed several crews on the day that this happened who said they didn't want to fly airplanes. apparently all of those crews were crews of a320 aircraft. now, the way that germanwings puts it they say that these people were crew members who most probably knew the pilots who were killed in this incident. we don't know the identities of the pilots that were killed yet. but they say it was just that these pilots felt unfit to fly because of the emotional trauma they were going through. whether or not they felt that their aircraft might not be safe is something that the airline itself has rejected something the german pilot union has rejected as well. but it's certainly something still being speculated on here in the german media and internationally as well. germanwings for its part put out a statement that today again there were flights that needed to be canceled because they simply didn't have enough pilots available. they also needed to charter some aircraft from other airlines here in germany to make sure

that they actually managed to conduct most of the flights that they were scheduled to do. so it certainly is something that is an issue. it's something that's being talked about but it is very much unclear whether or not it is indeed only the fact that these people feel like they have so much on their mind right now, that they don't want to be piloting an aircraft or whether they might indeed have a bigger security concern about the planes that they're actually flying. >> this particular model, there are several thousand of them flying around right now. i'm sure there's plenty of concern as they try to investigate what happened. fred, we'll get back to you in germany. coming up much more on the investigation into the crash, including new information on those two so-called black boxes and what may or may not be still left in those black boxes. major: here's our new trainer ensure active heart health. heart: i maximize good stuff like my potassium and phytosterols which may help lower cholesterol. new ensure active heart health supports your heart and body so you stay active and strong. ensure, take life in.

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recovery crews at the site of the germanwings plane crash, they're facing extremely tough challenges right now, steep mountain slopes tiny pieces of debris and the grim search for the remains of the victims from at least 15 countries. 150 people were on board that plane. our senior international correspondent nic robertson is joining us now from the staging area in the french alps. nic, give us an update on the search and the recovery effort. i take it they're trying to recover debris and obviously they're looking for bodies. >> reporter: wolf they are. and it does appear as if -- night is about to fall here. and it appears as if the teams are coming back in after their day on the mountain. what we know from the head of the teams putting the recovery

teams on the ground he told us earlier in the day that the helicopters cannot actually land in the area that the only way they can put the recovery teams on the ground is to winch them down. so it's a slow operation, it's a laborious operation. you cannot put in a lot of people all at one time. the recovery teams on the ground we understand at the moment today, have been marking the positions of the bodies as they find them on the mountainside. what they have to do before they can remove them from the mountainside we're told is record their location. and there is some kind of medical certification that needs to be given at the site in the mountain. so we're told do not expect any of the victims' bodies to be recovered today. that does seem to be the case. it does speak to the difficulty of the terrain there. we heard from the air accident investigation team saying that actually their teams have really been working from the air, that

they're trying to locate that second data recorder the data recorder that's froeken free of the outside frame. but they're not putting their teams down. the investigator teams are still flying over the air. we cannot stress enough how difficult the terrain here is, wolf. a couple of more helicopters coming in from the recovery site right now. you'll hear them coming in in a second. one coming in over my head right now. already dark enough for them to have their lights on here. >> i just want to be precise, nic, on the two so-called black boxes, they've got the cockpit voice recorder the outside was damaged but they're now trying to get the files at least so they can listen to what was happening in those final eight minutes or so. but they don't necessarily have the flight data recorder? they have the exterior of that but the internal all the files that's still missing, right? >> reporter: that's right, wolf.

this is what we heard from the french president when he came here today. he said the voice recorder the cockpit voice recorder has been recovered. it is damaged but they do expect over a period of time to be able to recover the voices that are on there. the data recorder that records the data in the aircraft prior to the crash, they found the outside casing for that but not the actual recorder itself. the investigation teams say they're still searching for that recorder. experts believe that even if it's broken free of this outside frame, the data on it could still be usable. but the investigation, the man heading the investigation said that he may not release in the short term details of what's on the voice recorder perhaps until they can get more information and get their hands on the data recorder. so this just tells us again the slow nature of the process, what we've been told not only is this terrain steep but it's unstable. it's not even a case of being

able to wench people in as they've been doing. but it's when they get on the ground, they don't have freedom of movement. they can't scramble over the rocks to search a piece of debris they see on one side of the hill. they have to go very carefully. the hill unstable in the first place, made less stable because of the impact of the aircraft. >> nic, thanks very much in the staging ground in the french alps. at this point, questions swirling around the last eight or ten minutes where an airplane full of passengers drops 32,000 feet. we don't know why. we also don't know if the passengers were even aware of what was going on during those final minutes or if they were even conscious during that slow relatively slow drop. let's discuss what we do know. joining us here in washington is peter gols former managing director of the national transportation safety board here in the united states. and joining us from london mary schiavo, aviation analyst for

cnn. what's your bottom-line conclusion based on what we know right now, mary about those final eight minutes and that relatively slow descent? what does this sound like to you? >> to me -- this is based on prior crashes and accidents that i've worked on. it does sound like some sort of a decompression or some other event that incapacitated the pilots. the b.e.a. representative was very careful with his words. but he has to be because of the families. they hang on every word from the investigators. but it was clear that he said from the roughly two hour and ten minute tape on the voice recorder he does have voices. but they're sorting them out. it almost looks like a movie script when they're done because they will put into the final transcript the radar information that they have and any kind of

recordings from the air traffic control tower and flow control and flight control. even if they don't have the data recorder they will at least have a running transcript and they will only release it in writing. you could tell he's heard something and they have been able to listen to it and they have gotten at least some of the voices. >> because he was a little unclear. i was listening to that news conference mary. did he say specifically that they heard voices during the final eight or ten minutes? >> yes. no, he would not say that. he said they heard voices but, again, he's got two hours, a little over two hours to sift through. then they have to put the time-stamps on it and put in any other data that they know. when we do this in reconstruction for private purposes for aircraft reconstruction to take to court, we have to hire acoustic experts and experts who listen for particular sounds in a cockpit,

et cetera. the voice recordings are identified by the pilot and the co-pilot. there's two mikes. he would not comment at all on that last eight minutes. >> mysterious that he wouldn't even say if they heard anything in those final eight or ten minutes once the plane went from 38,000 feet began a relatively disciplined descent until it crashed into the french alps. >> he was very cautious. very reserved. he was not going to get out in front of the gvt toirinvestigatory process at all. and the french are like that. they run a very disciplined investigation. there's a big mystery about what was going on the last ten minutes. >> what if there's total silence the last ten minutes and they don't hear anything -- they hear conversation going for the hour before the half hour when they're getting ready to take off and then the hour they were

actually in the air before that plane began to descend? >> if you have silence, you still have the overhead mike that will pick up sounds of what's going on in the cockpit. it will hear click, it will hear warnings and other potential sounds. they may be able to get some better understanding. but it would indicate that the flight crew perhaps was incapacitated. >> peter, you've been involved in a lot of these investigations after crashes. do you believe -- right now they're looking for the interior part of that flight data recorder. they found the box but they didn't find the inside. is that unusual, first of all? and secondly, say they find it. will it be so damaged that it might not be usable? >> from looking at the voice recorder, it was very damaged -- >> the exterior? >> yes. but they can get the inside. on the digital, they could pull out the necessary information from the digital boards even if they're cracked and broken.

but it will make the investigation more time-consuming because you've got to find those pieces. if the protective coverings have been torn off, it's going to be very difficult to find them. >> and they're relatively small in a huge area with snow in the alps and the rocks and debris. >> it will be a tough investigation. >> peter, mary i want both of you to stand by. we'll have much more on the mystery surrounding this plane crash in the french alps. much more coming up this hour. other news we're following, we'll get the latest on an explosion that just occurred near government buildings, major government buildings in the afghan capital of kabul. that attack comes as afghanistan's president has been addressing a joint meeting of the united states congress here in washington. you'll find out what he has to say about a continued u.s. military presence in his country.

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continuing to follow the breaking news more on that horrible plane crash in the french alps. we're now told to expect a joint news conference by the ceos of germanwings, that's the airliner that crashed obviously yesterday, and the parent company, lufthansa. we'll have live coverage of that news conference we presume they'll be offering more information, new information on what they have learned about what's going on. stand by. we'll have live coverage of the news conference. the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings, that's coming up. other news we're following, a new chapter in u.s. relations with afghan. ashraf ghani, the new afghan president, just wrapped up an

address before the joint meeting of the u.s. congress. he thanked the united states for what he called america's tremendous sacrifices. >> we owe a profound debt to the 2,315 servicemen and women killed in theand the more than 20,000 that have been wounded in service to your country and ours. [ applause ] >> the speech comes on the heels of president obama's announcement that the u.s. will now keep nearly 10,000 u.s. military personnel in afghanistan through the end of this year at the request of president ghani. originally half of those troops were supposed to be returning to the united states by the end of this year. let's go to our senior international correspondent nick paton walsh joining us from kabul right now. nick all this is happening as

more terror explosions where you are in kabul today. what happened? >> reporter: a few hours ago over in this direction, about 300, 400 meters or so near two key finance and defense ministry buildings, there was a substantial explosion who was a suicide bomber in a toyota car detonating killing seven, including one child, injuring 36. that reminds people here about the extraordinary volatile security situation. that is of course r, why the afghan administration wanted to see more u.s. troops stay behind, to train up the afghan security forces here. ashraf ghani in his speech just now to congress referred to isis who are trying to get a foothold here as a terrible threat saying they were here to try to find and exploit vulnerabilities in afghanistan. those vulnerabilities are a myriad. the taliban resurgent here the afghan security forces receiving great casualties against them. and there are domestic problems here for ashraf ghani.

he's sharing the government with a man he fought an election against and they have yet to appoint a defense minister. severe hurdles here, wolf. >> what's been the reaction there in afghanistan to president obama's decision to keep all the u.s. troops 9,800 u.s. troops there through the end of this year? start withdrawing them next year and have them all out? he says the complete withdrawal will occur by the end of 2016 early 2017 the latest he's got an end date when all u.s. troops will be out of afghanistan. what's the reaction? >> reporter: well certainly it's the afghan government that wanted to see a slower drawdown. ordinary afghans, the american combat role has more or less ended here. you won't be seeing the remaining troops out in the streets if you're afghan. that helps allay the white house of being accused of cutting and running. at the same time too, they're also keeping that key tenet

barack obama had in his foreign policy as the president who ends the wars in afghanistan and iraq. that final return will be left down to his successor maybe but certainly i think there's a bid by the white house to have their cake and eat it. they want to be seen as supporting afghanistan because of what isis did in iraq but at the same time they still want to be the ones that ended the war in afghanistan. >> nick paton walsh, be careful over there in kabul. thanks very much. we're awaiting a news conference. a joint news conference the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings. they're about to provide, we're told, new information about what happened. stand by. we'll have live coverage of that news conference. also coming up reports of a bounty now on the head of yemen's president as rebel forces cut the country literally in half taking over a base formerly used by the united states. the worsening crisis in yemen, that country seems to be falling apart right now. stand by.

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welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer reporting from washington. we're awaiting the start of a news conference from the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings. germanwings, the airliner involved in the crash of flight 9525. once that news conference begins, we'll have live coverage. the ceos from lufthansa and germanwings, we're expecting new

information on the mystery surrounding this crash of flight 9525. there's other news we're following right now including yemen. let's turn to yemen and the deteriorating situation there. the country's elected president is now on the run to an undisclosed location. he was forced to flee his palace in the southern city of aden when houthi rebels swarmed the city now reportedly a bounty on his head. >> paul cruickshank and retired colonel rick francona join us. colonel, yemen clearly out of control right now. the defense minister under arrest. all the officials were all practical purposes the u.s. used to deal with in going after al qaeda in the arabian peninsula aqap headquartered in yemen, they're basically gone. the u.s. is out of there. the embassy has been evacuated, all u.s. military personnel out

of there. what is going on? this looks like a total, total disaster. >> everything we had there is gone. it's a total collapse of any kind of control in the country. it's devolving into a civil war. it's going to get worse. but for the united states interest we no longer have a capability to interface what was left of the yemeni army or the intelligent services. our capability to conduct strikes against aqap is severely degraded. hopefully we can replicate that in another country, djibouti saudi arabia somewhere like that. but this puts a blow in our efforts against aqap one of the more capable al qaeda elements. >> the bomb-maker is still on the run over there. very sophisticated capabilities and they have a track record of going after u.s. targets here in the united states as well. paul these shiite houthi rebels they're backed by iran now taken control of a major air base in yemen which was recently abandoned by the united states.

and there are these reports the u.s. not only left and fled the area but they left about $500 million worth of military equipment there that these shiite rebels have maybe aqap has, maybe some other terrorist groups have right now. your reaction to what's going on? >> well it's all obviously very very concerning. the houthis are on the verge of taking aden the second largest city in yemen, that risks plunging the country into a full-blown civil war. and i think al qaeda in yemen and isis are going to be the big winners here. they'll be able to exploit this civil war to their own advantage. they're going to be able to exploit anger amongst sunni tribals who are infuriated by this houthi takeover of sanaa and parts of south of the country to get a recruitment windfall. this will all help al qaeda build up its position further

inside there. it's been the most active group in terms of plots against the united states. i think they are on the verge of having more resources than at any point before to launch those kind of plots against u.s. aviation. of course now with this rivalry with isis the onus is even more on al qaeda in yemen to launch these kinds of international plots to shore up their support base. >> colonel francona the saudis now report their amassing their own troops in saudi arabia but on the border with yemen, that northern border with yemen. is that to protect saudi arabia from infiltration bror does it mean the saudi troops might be moving into yemen given their understandable concern of what's going on in this neighboring state? >> it's a little bit of both. but i think the saudis are posturing more some sort of possible military intervention. they don't want to do this. but they have committed to supporting the democratically

elected president, al hadi. but i'm not sure the saudis want to get involved in yemen. it's a tough fighting environment. other countries have tried and been unsuccessful. so it's a real tough decision for the saudis but they don't want to see control of yemen to what they believe is a proxy group for iran their major rival across the persian gulf. >> looks like iran's making a major inroad in yemen as they have in iraq in syria, in lebanon and other places as well. that's a great concern to the saudis as all of us know. thanks, guys, very much. always helping us better appreciate what's going on. just ahead, they came from at least 15 different countries and two of them were from the united states. the identities of the american victims of flight 9525, we're getting more information on them. stand by for that. and any moment now, the airline, lufthansa and its

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there's other breaking news we're following right now. the united states military has just announced it will make an announcement shortly on the bowe bergdahl case. let's go to barbara starr, our pentagon correspondent. remind our viewers who bowe bergdahl is and what we're anticipating. >> reporter: this is a case that has garnered worldwide attention and really tied the army up in knots for years now. sergeant bowe bergdahl left his base in afghanistan in july 2009 was very quickly captured by insurgents in afghanistan, held for five years. and it was just last year that president obama made the decision to trade bergdahl in captivity. you see the rescue mission there to bring him back home in exchange for releasing taliban militants from guantanamo bay. hugely political, hugely controversial. the president making the decision to get bowe bergdahl back. but what everyone's been waiting for is what we are going to

learn at 3:30, the next step in this case. because bergdahl by all accounts left that base in afghanistan voluntarily. by all accounts he walked away of his own free will. he was not captured on base. he was captured outside. he went outside the wire. so at 3:30 today in fort bragg, north carolina, the army will announce the next steps in any disciplinary proceedings against bergdahl. what they have been doing for several months now, general mark milly, the head of u.s. army forces in the united states, has been reviewing the evidence, reviewing the case. he now has apparently by all accounts made a decision on the next steps. there are two roads in front of them in terms of discipline for bergdahl. how to hold him accountable for what he did. they could choose administrative action basically giving him a poor discharge, reducing his pay, reducing his rank, dismissing him from the army.

they could decide to go to court. they could order a court marshal proceeding, essentially a military criminal proceeding. a lot of people have talked about this being a case of desertion. that may be a very tough case to make. you have to have the evidence that he had a clear intent to desert and never return to his post. military experts we've talked to say der say desertion can be a very difficult case to make because of the level of evidence that is required. so where are we right now? at 3:30 today, east coast time fort bragg, north carolina the u.s. army will announce the next steps in this investigation, how they want to proceed. every army official we have talked to over the months has said bergdahl must be held accountable for what he did, you cannot serve in the u.s. military and walk away from your post. but they also remind everyone this is a u.s. soldier who

endured five years of brutal captivity by the taliban. do they want to send him to jail? do they want to go through a very public trial for this soldier? do they want to subpoena his old buddies who may now be out in the civilian world? do they want to remind everyone of that rose garden ceremony where president obama met with his parents and talked about him finally coming home? it's a really complicated case to make. and emotions in the army, very high on this. wolf? >> because a lot of his fellow soldiers fellow -- the guys he was serving with there in afghanistan believe he did actually desert that he walked away on his own for whatever reason. and in the process he endangered a lot of them because they then had to leave their relatively safe compound to go out on a search mission to find them. some of them potentially could

have been hurt and in the end, the u.s. had to give up five militants in exchange even though the united states supposedly doesn't negotiate with terrorists. in this particular case the obama administration was willing to give up five taliban detainees being held at guantanamo bay in exchange for sergeant bowe bergdahl. there's a lot of anger towards this guy among his fellow soldiers right? >> reporter: that is correct. there is a whole range of feelings. that's why i say emotions very high on this case. there are soldiers who will tell you that other soldiers died in the search for bowe bergdahl. when the unit was ordered to search eastern afghanistan for him, that there were casualties as they ran into taliban, as they ran into other militant activity and that some soldiers died as a direct result of that. the pentagon will tell you that this was a military mission and that they searched for any

soldier, any member of the u.s. military who essentially goes missing or is perceived to have been taken captive. on the question of the terrorists from guantanamo bay that were released and have been held in qatar under monitoring for the last year that also very controversial because one of them at least made contact with his old taliban buddies. so this is a very complex case emotions high. and at 3:30 today, we are going to find out what the next steps are that the u.s. army plans to take. >> 3:30 p.m. eastern, a little bit less than two hours from now. cnn a lot of coverage of that. barbara, we'll be watching together with you. thank you very much. let's take a quick break. we're standing by for that news conference the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings, we expect new information on the investigation into the crash in the french alps. it apparently killed 150 people. before earning enough cash back from bank of america to help pay for her kids' ice time.

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all right. we're standing by for two news conferences. we've been reporting the news that the pentagon has now made a decision what to do with sergeant bowe bergdahl. that announcement will be made 3:30 p.m. eastern. barbara starr is working the story. stand by for that. we're standing by for a joint news conference t ceos of lufthansa and germanwings. we'll have live coverage of that. apparently they've got new information, new information on what is going on in this investigation. 150 people presumed dead in that plane crash in the french alps. stand by for that news conference. that's coming up the ceos of luft hans dahansa and germanwings. bowe bergdahl has caused a lot of concern here in the united states since the united states his release from the taliban in exchange for five taliban detainees who had been held at guantanamo bay at the u.s. military prison there.

ed lavandera has a timeline on what happened in this case. >> reporter: the night bowe bergdahl disappeared from his post in the summer of 2009 he was 23 years old. the army sergeant's gun, bulletproof vest and his night vision goggles were all found in his bunk. from that moment the u.s. military would spend almost five years looking for and negotiating for bergdahl's release. >> our commanders are sparing no effort to find this young soldier. >> reporter: it's a saga that still isn't over for the soldier who is now 28 years old. when bowe bergdahl disappeared, he was stationed at a u.s. military outpost in southeastern afghanistan. he was supposed to be on a guard shift that night. this was his first deployment as a u.s. soldier, and he had been in afghanistan less than two months. other soldiers in his unit have described bergdahls a a deserter and a traitor to his country. >> i think he just wanted to go on an adventure without having

anybody to answer to without having anything to worry about. he wanted to be able to go out and see afghanistan for himself without, you know the army stopping him. >> reporter: bergdahl would end up in the hands of the taliban. intensive efforts to find bergdahl in the early days of his disappearance failed. before long bergdahl's captors would soon start showing off their prize capture in propaganda videos. >> in fact this is exactly why -- by the afghans but by many neem the world. >> reporter: the u.s. government believed bergdahl was then passed around between taliban captors and members of what's called the hakani network which would have taken him into pakistan. for his mother and father these videos would be the only proof of life they'd see of their son. frustrated by the slow frog res in find z his son, bob bergdahl grew out his beard as a sign of

dold tearty and started teaching himself to speak personshtu the language of the captors. >> the father does not leave his son alone on the battlefield. >> reporter: then in may of last year after several years of negotiating the obama administration agreed to release five taliban prisoners held in guantanamo bay for bowe bergdahl. he was brought to this field in khost province and handed over the a special forces unit. one of the soldiers told him on the chopper ride out, we've been looking for you for a long time. ed lavandera, cnn, dallas. at 3:30 p.m. eastern time a little bit more than an hour and a half or so from now, the pentagon will be making an announcement about his fate. will he be court-martialed, will he be relieved of duty? what will happen to bowe bergdahl. we'll have coverage of that

announcement as far as sergeant beau bowe bergdahl is concerned. 3:30 p.m. that announcement will be made at ft. bragg. the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings are getting ready to make some statements about what's going on in the investigation. by the way, we've just learn eded from the state department, jen about, s a psaki saying that another american on that doomed flight. we're getting information on this third american. let's take a quick break. much more on both of these developing stories right after this.

once again we're standing by for a news conference of the ceos of lufthansa and germanwings. they're getting ready to make a statement. we'll have live coverage here on cnn. in the meantime we're getting new information on those two so-called black boxes, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.

peter goelz is with me here in washington the former director of the national transportation safety board. will the u.s. get involved ntsb, other u.s. experts this helping the french try to determine what's included on those two black boxes? >> it depends ow damaged they are and whether the u.s. has any particular expertise. but the french are fully capable. they have a very advanced laboratory there, the germans have one as well. i think the french will keep this close to home and they will be fully capable of downloading. >> i know the airbus is a european consortium. the jets i believe, rolls royce jet, maybe boeing jets. what about the black boxes, who manufactures those? >> those are manufactured in the u.s. >> you would think they would want the best u.s. minds to help them in a complicated situation like this. >> right. and the u.s. has offered that. they've offered their expertise. if the french take it i

wouldn't be surprised. but we have a good working relationship between the big four or five investigative agencies. they share information, they share expertise. they do cross-training. so it's a good working relationship. >> if there's some criminal investigation that might be developing we have no idea if that's involved. interpol the fbi, presumably all of them would get involved as well. >> i think this would be an international hunt for whoever was responsible if it proves to be criminal. >> and we don't know mechanical catastrophic criminal. the only thing we know the mystery, the last eight or ten minutes there was no communication from cockpit to ground control. >> exactly. it reinforces the need for realtime streaming of this kind of data. we can't have these kinds of mysteries continuing. >> you don't have to look for a black box. they have it on a server right away. they need video cameras in those cockpits apnd you can do realtime streaming of that. it's expensive. i know it's expensive.

pilots unions don't like it. >> it's the right thing to do. >> that's it for me. i'll be back 5:00 p.m. in the "situation room." for our viewers in 2340r9 america, newsroom with brooke baldwin starts right now. >> this is cnn breaking news. we got several major stories to report here on cnn. i'm brooke baldwin. two breaking stories. on the germanwingsairbus we have news that a third american was on the flight that crashed into the alps. what now we know from investigators from basically the french equivalent of the ntsb. stand by for that. also breaking here on cnn, we are now soon to learn