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Andreas Lubitz

Treacherous conditions hamper Germanwings recovery

Mihret Yohannes
Special for USA TODAY
Workers collect debris and search for the second black box at the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French Alps, above the town of Seyne-les-Alpes, in southeastern France, on March 29, 2015

BERLIN — A team of 50 forensic and recovery workers resumed searching for victims from the Germanwings plane crash in treacherous French Alps terrain Monday, as airline officials said a crucial data recorder might never be found.

At 6,000 feet above sea level, the search, in its sixth day, continued to be hampered by harsh weather and the inaccessible location of the crash site.

After listening to the plane's voice recorder, recovered Wednesday, French prosecutor Brice Robin alleged that German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, 27, intentionally crashed the jetliner into the mountains on Tuesday, killing himself and 149 others aboard. The second "black box" containing the flight data recorder is still missing.

The data recorder stores detailed information on altitude, speed and how the pilots handled the controls, factors key to determining the cause of the crash with greater certainty.

On the steep, high-alpine slopes of the crash site, which spans almost 5 acres, search teams battled snow and stormy weather accompanied by climbers used to scaling the difficult terrain.

Another difficulty is that the plane disintegrated into small pieces because it apparently smashed into the mountain at cruising speed.

According to the French Interior Ministry, 86 different DNA strands have been identified from the recovered human remains using dental records, fingerprint records and DNA samples from family members.

Currently, 400 to 600 body parts are being examined by identification experts.

"We haven't found a single body intact," said Patrick Touron, the deputy director of the police's criminal research institute, according to French news agency AFP.

Searchers have found the luminous orange protective cover of the data recorder, which weighs between 15 and 22 pounds, but they are not picking up the device's signal that it is supposed to emit to aid in the hunt.

"It could be that the damage was so serious that it is not sending out a signal," Lufthansa manager Kay Kratky said on Sunday. It also is possible that it is buried under rubble and debris, he said.

Robin said an access road to the crash site close to Seyne-les-Alpes was being built and might be ready to use by Monday night. The road will allow heavier equipment to reach the site for recovery of larger parts of the plane.

The site previously had been accessible only by helicopter.

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