>> wlibe from tet dw studio in berl. this is "the journal." coming up on the program. the german, french and spanish leaders visit the site of the crashed germanwings plane in the alps. the cockpit voice recorder has been found now. >> a tearful day at one school that lost 18 of its students and teachers. >> and some 49 spaniards died in the crash. spain has now begun three days of mourning. >> a day after the germanwings crash in the french alps,

investigators in pairs say they have been able to extract some useable data from the plane's cock pick voice recorder. the flight data recorder, though, is still missing. >> the airbuss a320 went down on its way to dumervil. we will get the latest from the crash site in a moment, but first we have this. >> the french president hollande chancellor angela merkel. they received updates on recovery efforts and spoke with members of the severino team. >> our shots are with the german victims and those from other countries. this is truly a tragedy. our visit here as underscored the magnitude of it. >> crews are working around the clock. hundreds of police officers and firefighters are also on the

scene. the weather has improved, but working conditions remain arduous nonetheless. debris is spread across several hectres. those who visit the site are astounded at how little is left. >> it is surprising that an entire plane disintegrated. it is really in pieces. we can't identify anything. >> it's a feeling of despair thinking of the victims. it is really sad. >> the recovery effort is now focused on finding the aircrafts flight data recorder. it may hold the key to unraveling events prior to the cash. the cockpit voice recorder was recovered on tuesday. it contains conversations between the pilots and noises in the cockpit. the recorder was heavily damaged

but did contain useable data. they have retrieved some information, but a complete analysis will take several more days. that is important for the relatives of the victims. some arrived at this hotel in barcelona accompanied by helpers. they want to know what caused the tragedy. among the 150 people on board were 35 spaniards and 72 germans. at barcelona airport another germanwings flight farred for depufle on wednesday. one passenger told of a twist of fate. she and her daughter almost booked seats on the ill-fated flight. >> my daughter told me come on, mom. let's take the flight on tuesday, and we have one more day and we are going to germany. but i said no. often i let my daughter convince me but in this case i didn't. >> mixed feelings as passengers boarded the flight in the wake of a horrible tragedy.

dw's max hoffman is at the command center of the recovery operation in the french alps, and he joins us now. as we can see night has fallen. what is the state of the recovery operation now? >> they stopped for the night because in the dark they can't really do anything. as we know those mountains are very dangerous and the slopes are very steep. on top of that, they are slippery. you have humidity up there. so nobody can work without having the proper mountaineering or climbing equipment. when daylight comes again on thursday they will continue just to secure the perimeter trying to make sense of what they see as we just heard. the people who work there and come back here say it doesn't even look like an airplane. >> max as we know, there has been a crisis center there set up for the families of the

victims. how much access will they get, and how long will they be there? >> that isone of the big challenges for thursday. that is when the families of the victims will come here. some have already come. but that is when the big planes are coming from germany and from spain. one of the challenges here was just to find enough space for them enough rooms. we have about 400 rooms in three different villages around the region. that is one part, very logistical. the other part is how to welcome them. there will be about 30 psychologist there and there is a place behind me that will be a chappell where they can commemorate their loved ones and where they will be taken care of. then one very practical aspect of them coming is to get their d.n.a. to be able to match the human remains that are recovered from the crash site. >> as we saw in a report, the

zwrermian, french and spanish leaders visited the command -- the german, french and spanish leaders visited the command center. what were they seeing and hearing? >> they talked a long time to the people contributing to this effort in the mountains. they too two hours more than scheduled. i personally thought one of the strongest moments was when chancellor merkel, who was visibly and emotional touched she was very thankful for the solidarity of the french people and how they are helping the families of the victims. >> incredibly difficult task there on the ground for those rescue workers as well. that continues on thus. max, thank you for joining us. as we mentioned earlier in the practice one of the planes' black boxes has been found. we have spoke to an aviation expert to find out what we could

learn from them. >> the cock pick voice recorder records all the conversations of pilots among each other. it records the conversations between the pilots and the air photographic control. and finally it records all sounds in the cock pick. there are certain bells of systems which alarm pilots and which help investigators to understand what has been going on. at the end of the day hopefully the float data recorder will be found to understand, to get a full picture. then we will know what has happened and we need to to get the data from a flight data recorder if it is

recovered undamaged is a couple of days. but to get the full picture certainly a couple of months or even a year. >> all right. now the majority of the german passengers aboard flight 9525 came from the area of dumervil. among the passengers was a group of high schoolers and teachers, returning home from an exchange visit to spain. >> classes were canceled on wednesday. but students and teachers were encouraged to come in so they could grieve together and try to come to terms with the tragedy. the principal said nothing would ever be the same at the school. >> i was asked how many students there are at the school, and i said 1,283 bout thinking. after yards i realized that

since tuesday there are 16 fewer. it is so terrible that i am at a loss for words. >> the students and two teachers were returning from a language exchange trip to barcelona. the school had picked their names at random after more people signed up for the program than there were places. members of haltern have received condolences, including from chancellor angela merkel, who phoned the mayor on wednesday. he said it was the darkest time in the town's history. >> we are still in a state of shock. we can barely fathom what happened. we are trying to console each other so that we can make it through the day. >> classes on thursday will begin with a minute of silence.

some 50 counselors are on hand to lend emotional support to students and teachers at the school. >> oliver is at the school in haltern and he joins us now. 16 students and two teachers on the plane. it has been a very emotional day there. we see the cardinalles but give us an idea of what has been going on today. >> yes it has been a very emotional and very sad day here in haltern a city of 37,000 citizens that will never be the same. that is how the director of the school put it in a conversation i had earlier with him today. as you can see behind, the students are still coming here after all these hours. they have been here all day. people are coming, people are leaving. the number of candles in front of the building are getting bigger and bigger, i believe.

people are just trying to stay together and find a way to live with the grief they are having right now at the moment. >> more information is coming out about the victims. what can you tell us about the students who were on the plane? >> well, reportedly among the 16 students, there were 14 girls and two boys, all aged between 15 and 16, plus two teachers. they were on this trip to spain. the spanish group came here from december, and they were returning from a one-week stay with their spanish host families. there are many tragic details that have been emerging through the day. offense, the story of a girl who almost missed that plane because she missed her passport at her

spanish hosts but then eventually made it. many people are having feelings of guilt to deal with. the director who initiated this exchange program told me it is very hard for him. he always remembers the moments he signed theness forms and feels in charge for what has happened here. >> it must be incredibly difficult for school officials. they are mourning as well. tell us what is being done to help them? >> right now as we are speaking, there are 50 counselors inside the school, and they are having conversations with the students, with people who lost friends or classmates. they are incredibly young as well. so it must be a very difficult situation for them to deal with. i had the opportunity to speak to one of these counselors just a couple of minutes ago.

even for them it is very difficult. like this person in particular has never had the situation why which he had to speak to hundreds of students. that is why they need such a long number of counselors here. basically all they can do is listen to them and try and give them the feeling that somebody is there for them, somebody cares or license to them. i believe for the students themselves this must be some kind of a cold comfort in the end. >> yes a school and entire community in shock. thank you for joining us. >> germanwings hasn't yet released all of the nationalities of the victims because the airline is still trying to contact some of their families. >> it has been confirmed that three americans were on board as well as three british passengers. at least 35 victims were spanish. >> their relatives are preparing to visit the crash site in the alps and three days of mourning

are under way in spain. >> all across spain a moment of silence at noon in memory of the victims of the plane crash. the accident has shocked and saddened an entire country. everywhere flags are flying at half mast as three days of national mourning begin. many spaniards were among the victims, including businessmen from barcelona on their way to a food trade fair in cologne. this ceremony was held in a town northeast of barcelona. this is where the german exchange students killed in the class spent the last week. their spanish friends were devastated. >> the kids were with us here at the school for a week. we made excursions with them. we went to the beach. they had a lot of fun.

some harbaugh never been to the seaside. i can't believe what has happened. >> spain's newspaper headlines reflected that sense of disbelief. one paper called it a flight without a destination while another called it the tragedy in the alps. >> well, grief and mourning in spain, germany and beyond. for more on that, we are joined by a trauma specialist at the hospital here in berlin. these teenagers at haltern they have lost classmates and loved ones. what kind of services are important of a this insdent? >> it depends on the individual. it depends on what you need when you have lost someone close to you. some want to mourn. some have very high anger. some want to continue going and keep on with life.

it is a good thing to offer everything so they can continue to go to school tomorrow or to be at home and take some time. everything is ok now that is supporting. >> these services are widely available in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. but what about in the weeks and months to come? what happens then? >> it depends very much on where you live, whether you have access to professional support. most of the people that suffer from shock now do not need professional help that maybe some others may. >> what have we learned from other tragedies in the recent past in terms of getting the most effective counseling for people who need it? >> we have learned a lot from 9-1-1 and from 1998, the i. c.

e. train crash. what is very important is information, information information to shorten this time of uncertainty. this is very effective. and then to look at the needs of the individual actually. >> a time of mourning indeed. olaf a trauma specialist here. thank you for joining us in studio. well the victims of this crash included two pilots and four crew members off lufthansa's low-cost subsidiary, germanwings. >> there is mourning at the company's headquarters in cologne. but there is apprehension. some works are concerned about the safety of the planes they fly in. >> at 9:5 , germanwings works 0 observe a minute of silence at the airline's cornerstone headquarters. the crash has deeply shaken the

people who work for the lufthansa group worldwide. >> let me say this for all of us at lufthansa and germanwings. we still cannot understand how a technically sound plane with two experienced lufthansa pilot could experience such a tragedy in the middle what seems like an uneventful flights. >> many desks were close today as crews refused to fly after the disaster. whether personal fierce or questions -- fears or questions is behind it we don't know. >> all we know is there are colleagues so distressed by what happened that they don't feel ready to fly again. >> but a day after the crash travelers in dumervil are not letting the tragic events in france put them off their

journeys? >> sure there is uncertainty. i don't think planes are going to start crashing once. >> but a lunch to enormity for germanwings and its staff is is still a far way off. >> let's take a look at the airline that has been at the heart of this tragedy it, low-cost carrier germanwings. the parent company has been olding a press conference in lars bone a short while ago. what did they they have to say? >> we have seen an emotionally shattered management team now. they say this is the darkest hour in the 60-year history of the lufthansa group. he stressed that the airplane had a full clean record. that it was perfectly safe to fly. that the check up on the day before the disaster didn't show any problems. and the report from the pilot,

he didn't have anything to say. everything was sound. there was one interesting fact that the c.e.o. clarified. the plane on tuesday had departed barcelona late with a delay. yesterday lufthansa was not able to clarify what this one. today they say this was not due to technical problems but congestion at the barcelona airport. >> the same kind of delays our are accustomed to. tell us more. >> germanwings is a ramenter small company. people know each other. wednesday was also a day of mourning there because the employees have not only lost co-workers they have also lost friends probably. >> there were some reports that some germanwings staff was not showing up to work today. tell us about that? >> well, the germanwings c.e.o.

creditted that it was the heartships that were preventing people from coming to work. he said he is actually encouraging his employees in this type of behavior. if you have staff with their thoughts elsewhere especially if it is airborne, this may lead to safety problems. >> nothing that germanwings or lufthansa does can bring them back but what obligations do they have to the victim he is families and are they meeting them? >> the company germanwings and parent company lufthansa, they are flying survivors of the victims from dumervil and

barcelona to the crash site. also they have provided psychological support. the lufthansa c.e.o. also has promised financial support if it is rerequired. >> let's talk about a company. it has been facing a series of set had of backs including competition from other carriers. what does this do for lufthansa's image? >> it is a below to lufthansa's image definitely. apart from the problems it is facing now lufthansa is known for having high standards concerning safety, also concerning its sinbad sid areas. this crash this incident, has definitely harmed this help cation. >> thank you for joining us in studio. >> we are covering this story for you around the clock with al the latest. the adds is dw.de.

>> you will see what is going on theories and how they are proceeding with investigation. >> let's see now how the markets are reacting to all of this. here is what our market analyst had to say about it. >> the people behind the numbers were in the minds of investors today and it is easy to see why if you look at where we are. frankfurt germany's most important city when it comes to commercial aviation. it has the largest airport, and lufthansa is its most important employer not only in frankfurt but the entire region. it meets citizens as a very personal level. the dax showed minus signs all day long. tess being pushed down by a slightly increasing euro. >> in frankfurt let's take a closer look at those numbers that he mentioned.

>> the dax lost more than 1% on the day to end at 11875. over in new york, traders are still on the floor but the dow is currently in negative territory while the euro is valued at $1.09. >> turning now to some other international news growing uncertainty in yemen. the embattled president has fled his residence and no one knows where he has gone. >> rebels offered a bounty for his capture and arrested his defense minister. there are fears that yemen is on the verge of a civil way. >> the president was last season in public last weekend. now he has fled again to an undisclosed location. the rebels have the president on the defensive. these pictures are also from the weekend. they show bloody battles at a demonstration of government supporters. the third largest city in yemen

is of great strategic importance. it is a base for rebels ashey push further south. they have overrun the military base, and they are closing in on the port city of aiden, where hardy fled in february. volunteers have signedp to fight with the yemeni army. they are on their way to defend the city and the president. but not even he seems to believe they have a chanc hardy has called on the u. an asking you for international military intervention to hall the advance of the rebels. >> tonight sees the first soccer international of the year. world champions germany will host austral in kaiserslautern. >> but the air crash is casting a cloud over the event. >> the crash is weighing on players as they prepare for the big game. a moment of silence will be held before the kickoff. >> we are deeply saddened as stunned at what happened. our thoughts are with the

victims' families. >> some players have tweeted their condolences. among them, defender benedict. he comes from the same town as a group of students and teachers who died in the crash. he said this -- he says australia is a serious opponent. >> they are the new asian champions, and they are riding high. they are going to try to disrupt our play. it is always a challenge to play against a team like that. >> fresh from their asian cup triumph, they are riding a wave of confidence. his team has given a number of big names a run for their money. >> and that brings us to the end of this edition of "the journal." find more at dw.de. >> stay with us.

this is the world's largest school for learning kung-fu or chinese martial arts. some 35,000 students are currently enrolled here.