Recovery efforts are underway in the rugged terrain of the French Alps on Friday, where French authorities say between 400 and 600 pieces of human remains have been recovered from the site of the Germanwings flight 9525 crash. All 150 people onboard were killed when the plane crashed into the mountainside on Tuesday en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.
Three special flights from Germanwings and Lufthansa brought families and friends of the victims to Marseille on Friday morning, from Spain and Germany, the home countries of the majority of the victims.
Speaking from the French Alps town of Seyne-les-Alpes, Col. Patrick Touron of the French gendarme (military police) service said, "We haven't found a single body intact."
Photos from the scene show rescue workers being airlifted off of the mountain accompanying what appear to be bright yellow body bags. Family members of the victims gathered in the nearby village of Le Vernet, as French policemen held German and Spanish flags during a memorial service honoring those lost.
Le Vernet is the nearest village to the remote crash site, and a field in the area has become the staging zone for recovery efforts. A small memorial featuring a granite marker with a message in English, French, German and Spanish was placed in the town and on Friday a small pile of flowers and photos had begun to grow.
Locals bring flowers to remember victims of #Germanwings crash at memorial in Le Vernet. pic.twitter.com/InHP2sLKz9— Stuart Greer (@globalgreer) March 27, 2015
Locals joined the families in laying flowers at the memorial, according to journalist Stuart Greer of Canada's Global News who was tweeting from the village.
Red Cross workers were also on hand to assist the grieving relatives who descended on the town.
Touron said DNA samples have been taken from objects provided by the victims' families — such as toothbrushes — that could help identify the victims. Touron also said jewelry and other objects could help in the identification process.
Germanwings has set up an assistance program in Marseilles for those family members of the victims who are traveling to the area.
“Our focus in these darkest hours is to provide assistance to the families & friends of the victims of flight 4U9525,” said Thomas Winklemann, spokesman for the Germanwings Executive Board, in a statement released Friday. "The suffering and pain this catastrophe has caused is immeasurable. No words can express it and no amount of consolation is sufficient but we want to be there for visiting family members and friends if our support is desired."
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr on Thursday said the airline would honor "international arrangements regulating liability" and noted that it already has offered immediate financial aid to anyone requiring it.
Investigators' attention has now turned to Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who officials say was alone in the cockpit at the time of the crash and "intentionally" descended, apparently wanting to "destroy the plane."
Additional information from The Associated Press.