Three weeks after the Germanwings A320 crash, the recovery of the aircraft’s remains is coming to an end, with the teams having removed more than 80% of the 42 metric tons of debris, which range from a few centimetres up to several square metres in size, and according to the German national company, Lufthansa, which is overseeing the removal, all debris will have been recovered by 4th May.
The legal authorities will then have to decide what is to be done with the remains of the cockpit and fuselage which, for the time being, have been stored in a hangar at Seyne-les-Alpes, (Alpes de Haute-Provence) southeastern France.
The next step is the clean-up of the 2 sq.km. ( ¾ sq. miles ) of the crash zone.
For now, the inquest is concentrating on the identification of the victims. One hundred and fifty different DNA samples have been collected and analyzed locally. Coroners, and the French, National Gendarmerie, are now comparing these DNA samples with those obtained from the victims’ families. The time consuming task of identification, expected to take at least two months, has begun. Once the correlated DNA of each victim has been established, their families will be informed.
The analysis of the two flight recorders is also continuing. Having established that Andreas Lubitz deliberately programmed and accelerated the descent of the aircraft, the French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), whom we contacted, will more than likely publish a detailed account of the last forty minutes in the air of the 24th March flight 4U 9525.
