i want to go to karl penhaul here the crash site. i know you've spoke with some of the family members. more traumatic revelations about what their relatives went through on this flight. can you tell me what's the latest on getting these -- their loved ones' remains off the mountainside? >> reporter: well i think on that front, brooke there's been a deal of progress here. first, as you know this is treacherous, rugged terrain. and until now, all recovery teams had to go in by helicopter. there's been high winds and too windy for the helicopters to fly. but now the local mayor, he sent in a backhoe yesterday to carve a track through the mountainside so all-terrain vehicles can get through the crash site and take the teams with them. the good news is it's 100 yards from completion and only one obstacle to go. by tomorrow morning, it could be that recovery teams are riding to the crash site on all-terrain vehicles and that means they can bring the human remains and vital fragments of that plane back much more quickly. now, in those terms

cnn's karl penhaul is there with the very latest. good morning, karl. >> reporter: morning, christine. this is the spanish school we're outside it now, where those 16 german students spent the last week studying. now, while they were studying they were also being hosted by spanish families. they were forging friendships here. they were learning the language. they were continuing friendships as well because only three weeks ago, a group of spanish students had traveled to germany to study there and stay with german families. so today those friendships now come to an end with this accident. and on hand members of the red cross, they're giving some kind of support to some of the students, some of the teachers some of the parents that are inside the school right now. and they will commemorate their lost friends in about half an hour from now in some kind of short remembrance service. but as well while this is going on here of course lufthansa continuing to sift through the passenger lists to figure out the exact nationalities of who was o

karl penhaul, thanks so much. and budget travel across europe in recent years has become so much easier to do admirable things like cross-border school exchanges just makes it that much more sad. thanks karl. recent events have a lot of travelers wondering are those budget airlines safe? budget airlines do cut corners but on convenience. they cut corners on legroom, complimentary drink, low airfares but not a lot of trils. experts tell us they do not cut costs on safety. they do pay crews less than other airlines but that doesn't mean the pilot isn't safe and the planes themselves are very well maintained. in this particular case this was a very experienced cabin crew. some perspective here southwest is one of the best-known budget carriers here in the u.s. never has had a major crash. its stock was a top performer on the s&p 500 last year. and lufthansa's stock is down since the germanwings plane crashed. not really a surprise there, but many people say that the maintenance arm of lufthansa among the best in the w

karl penhaul. now, richard quest.l safety council and former ntsb chair. david soucie, former faa investigative and inspector. an eight-minute descent from 17,000 feet over the course of eight minutes. you would think they would have time to communicate, but do we know much about where there was communication? >> the nature of this descent suggests that basically the plane was told to descend. it continued to do that until it hit the ground. the fact that there was no may day from the cockpit or warning or emergency call from the cockpit but also crucially, the ground was calling the plane constantly. this is very controlled airspace. you suddenly start leaving your altitude without telling people what you're doing, you get people asking and that happened again and again and again. the fact they didn't respond to that suggests that something quite obviously dramatic was happening, whether they were conscious, whether they were able to at that particular point. >> debra, you heard a witness a moment ago who actually cl

i want to rejoin karl penhaul. he's at the barcelona airport where this plane took off from. rrive. tell us about that karl. >> reporter: hi carol. yes, it's a moment passes more and more family members are arriving at a crisis center that has been set up at taermerminal 2. as we speak another two ladies have gone through the gate heading towards the kroo is siscrisis center. family members of people on board. we know there were gem mans on board, spaniards on board as well. they haven't given us a full list of passengers or the nationalities that were on board. we're expecting some kind of press release from them in literally the next few moments. so far no further confirmation either of why that german wings flight may have left around half an hour late from barcelona's terminal 2 airport. it was due to leave, we're told around 9:30 local time and didn't leave until just after 10:00 local time. the weather has been bad in the barcelona region for a number of days now, but no indication at this stage whether weather was a factor in the delayed departure. but as i say, expecti

karl penhaul is in barcelona where the flight took off and jim bittermann is in paris.hat's the latest on the search? what are you hearing from french authorities? >> reporter: the french interior minister just arrived in the area in the last hour and he took a flight over the crash area and one of the people onboard his helicopter was a french deputy, a member of parliament. he described the crash scene as covering about four acres of area very mountainous terrain. he said it would be very difficult for the searchers to get in there. they'll have to go in by foot. he said that there was no skien of life at the scene at all and he said that the debris was scattered everywhere. he said it was just small pieces of debris. it's going to be also complicated for the searchers because of the weather down there. there's a front moving through in the next few hours and the temperatures, which are right now below freezing, expected to drop even further. there's rain falling. could turn into snow and that is going to also complicate things and could cover the remains of the peopl

. >> all right, karl penhaul. there's so much to process here. we want to turn to our panel, richard quest, our cnn aviation correspondent. cnn safety analyst, former faa safety inspector. tom fuentes also joins us a former former assistant director for the fbi. and mary i'll begin with you. so often, we are so hopeful that the voice recorder the cockpit voice recorder will be recovered recovered. they have found it it has revealed a tremendous amount of information, first and foremost, that this was, indeed, deliberate. >> well and certainly the french vea, i've worked previous cases where they were the investigative agency and quite competent. and at the press conference yesterday when the investigator was asked from the vea about those last eight minutes, he seemed shaken clearly he'd heard something but he would not comment. i suspect that this is correct and what they have revealed to us will turn out to be the case because it's the prosecution. but at this point, this is a carolina criminal investigation. the vea will continue their work, t

karl penhaul, cnn, the french alps. >> that's karl penhaul reporting.ultant for engineering consulting firm esi. so we know that the voice recorder that black box, was already recovered. that's how we were able to hear about the captain who was banging on you know the door and that the co pilot, there was silence with the descent of the plane. now we're talking with about the flight data recorder. when we talk about and we've had you here talking about the malaysian air flight and we talk about how there is a pinger that searchers will rely on when that black box hits water, we don't have that in this case no pinger. it is orange. but how will they go about trying to find this flight data recorder? >> so it really is going to be a matter of examining the wreckage. they've got a pretty good idea of the wreckage the debris trail, where it goes where it's going to be. but this is very difficult terrain. there are all sorts of nooks, crannies areas very difficult to get to. it may take them some time to find that. >> so mostly sight then. >> it will be. and

. >> i want to bring in cnn's karl penhaul. he's at the airport where families are starting to gather. hi carl. >> reporter: good morning, carol. i'm outside terminal 2 and this is the terminal from which that airline departed. minute by minute more family members are starting to arrive. at the end of the terminal is where a crisis center has been set up. involved in that the spanish aviation authorities, representatives of the airline and also members of spain's emergency services. we've seen psychologists go in there, for example, on hand to receive some of the relatives who are starting to arrive. i've seen at least six or seven groups of people arriving speaking spanish as they come through a set of automatic barriers and some of them hugging one another, others crying. none of them so far offering any comment and of course for respect of the families right now, we're not pushing anybody for comments. in terms of anything new from the airline representatives, it's being handled thoroughly from the german end here in spain a

karl penhaul, cnn, the french alps. >> just ahead, what it took to take 9525 down.kyung lah takes us down a flight simulator, what it's like during the final minutes. >>> authorities say the co-pilot ♪ edith piaf "no regrets" plays throughout ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >>> authorities say the co-pilot did crash on purpose killing everyone on board. it defys comprehension and goes against every instinct in their dna and we will sew you what it took for this co-pilot to take the airbus a320 to descend as low as it could go, and what it looks like with the alarms triggered. kyung lah shows us firsthand. >> lock the physical door. it will totally lock out that door. >> reporter: so begins what is the likely descent and the a320 simulator. >> just dialled in. got the airplane going down. >> reporter: the motion of hitting 100 in this situation is unthinkable for you? >> absolutely. why would i do that? it goes against every grain in my body. there's no reason why i would do that. >> reporter: you know the consequences of that action. >> absolutely. >> reporter: if you had to step in this

karl penhaul, jim bittermann, thank you for that. stand by. i have a comment from the white house. we are getting a comment from the national security council spokesperson. she is the assistant to the president for homeland security. this is what she is advising. she says that the president has been briefed on this crash, that u.s. officials have been in touch with their french, german and spanish counterparts, the authorities. they have been offered the assistance the united states. also this spokesperson sending thoughts and prayers saying that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and the loved ones. they are also referring all inquiries to the french authorities for updates on the investigation. and here is maybe what the most critical aspect of this statement is. there is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time. let me repeat, there is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time. this is from the national security council spokesperson with the comment from the united states white house. there were at least 150 people on board that p

want to bring in cnn correspondent karl penhaul. he was in the room for the extraordinary press conference this morning when we got the news that prosecutors, karl, think this was a deliberate act. >> reporter: it was an absolute bombshell when french prosecutor came out with that. he was in this very clear and frank press conference because of the media leaks overnight. when he was speaking the the press, he said he had only seen a full transcript of the conversations and sounds in the voice cockpit reporter a few hours before the press conference, after about midnight local time is when he received that information to look through it. not only was it a bombshell for the press, of course it was a bombshell for the families as well. just minutes before coming to the press conference, he met with over 200 family members who had flown in from dusseldorf and barcelona, relatives of the germans an spanish victims. he said, too, it was very difficult to break this news to them. he said a lot of the relatives just could not believe what th

we're in dusseldorf and karl penhaul is in the french alps and pamela brown is live in germany. what you learning about the crucial questions asked of lubitz and what he withheld? >> reporter: erin it's becoming increasingly clear that andreas lubitz went to great lengths to hide his mental illness from lufthansa. just this past summer lubitz had to fill out a questionnaire as part of a recertification exam that every pilot must go through every year. a few questions on this questionnaire. do you have any vision problems? are you taking any medications? have you ever attempted suicide? do you have any psychological psychiatric or neurological diseases? if anything that he put on there was a red flag then the aviation doctor would have had to alert lufthansa. lufthansa said they didn't get any indication nothing was brought to tlearheir attention that he had any problems. it's up to him to self-report. we learned that he went to an eye doctor for vision problems and it turned out, according to a source this doctor diagnosed him with a psychosomatic order. we don't know when that

karl penhaul, cnn, the french alps. >> just ahead, what it took to take 9525 down. young kyung lah takes us down a flight simulator, what it's like during the final minutes. you can't predict the market. but at t. rowe price we've helped guide our clients through good times and bad. our experienced investment professionals are one reason over 85% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper averages. so in a variety of markets we can help you feel confident. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. the promise of the cloud is that every organization has unlimited access to information, no matter where they are. the microsoft cloud gives our team the power to instantly deliver critical information to people, whenever they need it. here at accuweather we get up to 10 billion data requests every day. the cloud allows us to scale up so we can handle that volume. we can help keep people safe and to us tha

let's go live to the french alps, karl penhaul is standing by. what are you seeing karl? >> reporter: well wolf, we've been talking a lot to the commanders of the rescue and recovery teams. the various people out there at the crash site pulling in debris, pulling in body parts. there's some good news. the phase of recovery of human remains and their personal possessions could be completed by this week, quicker than expected. and now those recovery and rescue teams have a new hunch. they believe that if the black box data recorder survived that crash it could be buried under shale and gravel at the crash site. once the body parts are removed, they'll start to probe and rake through the gravel to see if the black box may be buried, wolf. >> you're also hearing some serious excepty ty skepticism about the video of the last moments of the flight from the french and german publications. what are you hearing from your sources karl? >> reporter: yeah absolutely wolf. i would categorize this as much stronger than except i 6. these are the guys that would have ever recovered the m

cnn's karl penhaul filed this report. >> reporter: swinging on a wire, they recover the remains. hundreds of feet below, emergency crews cling to the mountainside just so they don't fall. investigators say the speed of the crash pulverized plane and passengers. the recovery operation, they say is bit by bit, bag by bag. you can just pick out the small red flags rescuers dig into the earth when they discover new fragments. that looks like a scorch mark. the french prosecutor said the plane hit the mountain, bounced off and then desint grated. it's a tough hike through rugged mountains and steep valleys. it's still a little while before dawn. in other words to understand why investigators describe this as their biggest challenge. we try to get closer to the crash zone. the sun is coming down, certainly no sign of snow just yet. few people except shepherds live up here. conditions are too inhospitable. getting up here is literally hanging on to tree roots and grass. you can see why they're going to have to fly anything out of that crash site by helicopter. the whir of rotor blades

karl penhaul joining us now live from near the crash site. and karl we're hearing that authorities are working to build a road so that relatives can actually get as close as possible to the site, right? >> reporter: good evening to you, brianna. yeah that's absolutely the case. because up until now, recovery teams have had to fly into the crash site by helicopter because the terrain is just too rugged to get in there on foot. and so the village mayor here yesterday morning september ant a digger a grader a backhoe into that action. the job is to carve into the mountainside and make a track there so that rescue teams can get there on foot or on atvs. and progress in fact has been surprisingly quick. they've already got about 400 yards of that tract done. they've reckoned they've got about twice the length to go still. but by the end of the week recovery teams could be going in on the ground. that should make it a lot quicker to get human remains and parts of the wreckage out. there's also a little consolation on that front as well because the f

also, we learn more as karl penhaul mentioned. the flight and two opera singers on their way home after performing in barcelona. i talk to a friend and colleague of one of the singers. look! this is the new asian inspired broth bowl from panera bread. that noise! panera broth bowls should be slurped with gusto! to explore further order online or visit your neighborhood panera bread. nobody told us to expect it... intercourse that's painful due to menopausal changes it's not likely to go away on its own. so let's do something about it. premarin vaginal cream can help it provides estrogens to help rebuild vaginal tissue and make intercourse more comfortable. premarin vaginal cream treats vaginal changes due to menopause and moderate-to-severe painful intercourse caused by these changes. don't use it if you've had unusual bleeding breast or uterine cancer blood clots, liver problems, stroke or heart attack, are allergic to any of its ingredients or think you're pregnant. side effects may include headache pelvic pain, breast pain vagi

here's karl penhaul. >> reporter: swinging on a wire they recover the remains. crash pulverized plane and passengers. the recovery operation, they say, is bit by bit, bag by bag. you can just pick out the small red flags rescuers dig into the earth when they discover new fragments. and that looks like a scorch mark. the french prosecutor said the plane hit the mountain, bounced off and then disintegrated. it's a tough hike through rugged mountains and steep value his. still a little while before dawn but we're going toward a trail head. in order to understand why some rescues describe this as their biggest ever challenge, we try to get closer to the crash zone. >> there was a little bit of frost this morning. now the sun's coming down. certainly no sign of snow just yet. >> translator: few people except shepherds live up here. conditions are too inhospitable. >> getting up here is littally hanging on to tree roots and grass. you can see why are going to have to fly anything out of that crash site by helicopter. >> the whir of rotor blades helps pinpoint the site

karl penhaul has that part of the story. karl. >> reporter: hi, michaela. been forging friendships with young spaniards here spaniards who had spent time with german host families just about three weeks ago, but in addition of course to the germans that have died the other nationalities, don't forget the spaniards, of course according to the latest information from germanwings, 35 spaniards on board. 15 nagstionalities were among the victims of this flight, that really speaks to the cosmopolitan nature of barcelona. it is a commercial hub so we understand that some of the people on board that flight were spanish business men heading to german trade fairs. we know there were a couple of opera singers on there. germans. one from kazakhstan. but it's a city that's also a tourist hub as well. a lot of people come here for vacations, northern european retirees coming down here for a bit of winter sun. the younger crowd that maybe coming in for a weekend break to enjoy the real sights, some of the architecture some of the clubs, some of the cuisine of barcelona.

let me bring in cnn international correspondent karl penhaul. and states of mind and about the whole psychological thing. i want to take this right back to you, the real basic human level. today i spent most of the day at the memorial site about two and a half miles from the actual crash site and from what i've seen is a reminder that there are people of all nations on that flight. there were people of all ages and the people i've seen shuffling up to a marble plaque have been elderly moms and dads and they could be your and mine mom and dad, i've seen brothers and sisters hunched and broken. i've seen husbands and wives looking into those mountains and looking for inspiration, looking for some kind of comfort, and i want to show you this report. a father grieves. a mother and a sister wonder why. milad islami i was a sports journalist from iran. it was his big brother. >> he said to one of his friends that if someone killed and the flight crashed it would be okay because it's for one minute and it's gone and you are in the sky and your soul wil

karl penhaul, thank you so much. deborah hersman, she chaired the national transportation safety board, now president of the national safety council. deborah deborah, thank you for joining us. even though the searchers are having great difficulty accessing this crash site, there are photos of the plane, debris. how much will investigators learn from the actual wreckage itself itself? >> they're going to learn the most when they recover the black boxes, the cvr and the svr. but they can learn a lot from the debris field, particularly if they find something on the flight data recorder that kind of guides them to a part of the aircraft, one of the four quadrants of the plane, the nose tail and two wings, if there were any control surface problems or control ability issue highydraulic or engine problems they'll want to look at that debris. but the black boxes are the best information they can get. >> i know they've found one, i'm not sure which. there are conflicting reports about that. what's most important if they only

cnn's karl penhaul spoke with relatives of one of the victims.g with you. >> reporter: alisyn of course it's very important we analyze the nature these victims died but it's important we remember the manner in which they live. by the hour relatives of the dead are coming here to the memorial site about 2 1/2 miles as the crow flies from the memorial site. i had an opportunity to speak to one person whose brother died on that site and here's what she had to tell of her big brother. >> he said if someone killed in the flight crash would be okay because it's gone and you're in this sky and your soul would go. he had spent eight minutes -- >> reporter: she, like many of the other relatives are desperate to get as close as possible to the crash site. they want to find out what it's like there. i hiked up there a couple days ago and able to tell her, look right now, spring flowers are going and the melted snow is filling crystal streams. at that point, she looked up to those snow-capped peaks behind me and said at least i can find some comfort. now, i