News Co-Pilot Deliberately Crashed Plane as Grieving Families Go to Crash Site; Answering Viewer Questions on Flight 9525.
BLITZER: Updating the breaking news this hour. Officials now say it appears the co-pilot of Germanwings flight 9525 crashed the plane deliberately. That based on the cockpit voice recorder. The French prosecutor says after the pilot left the cockpit, the co-pilot refused to let the pilot back in, even when he was banging on the door screaming, "Let me in." He also says the co-pilot initiated the plane's descent from 38,000 feet to 6,000 feet. The prosecutor says all that was done on purpose by the co-pilot. Those shocking revelations coming as grieving friends and families go on an emotional trip to the crash site in the French Alps. Our own Karl Penhaul is joining us on the phone right now. He's near where the families have gathered. Karl, how did they hear this terrible news today that the co-pilot took that plane down deliberately?</s>KARL PENHAUL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, it was the French prosecutor himself who met those families as they arrived in Marseille Airport. At least two flights have come in bringing relatives from the German side and the Spanish side. Before the French prosecutor met the press, he received up to 200 relatives and told them the news first. He said he owed it to them to keep them up to date with every new detail. Of course the French prosecutor was under pressure to give out as much detail as he could after leaks overnight in the news media gave way of some of the details of the explosive new material. He said that many of the relatives expressed disbelief. He said that they did not have the words to express their surprise that this investigation had taken this kind of turn. He said then he was bombarded by multiple questions asking technical questions and legal questions as well. Families trying to -- to come to terms with just how this could have happened. And then, of course, the reaction from the press as he then went and dropped his bombshell publicly, even among the press, dropped jaws and shaking heads. Many just could not believe the explosive remarks that the prosecutor was making -- Wolf?</s>BLITZER: It was amazing. We were watching it live right here on CNN. Do we have an update on the teams scouring the mountain side right now looking for the remains of the people on board that plane?</s>PENHAUL: Yes, absolutely. Again, the prosecutor going into quite a lot of detail about that. First of all, he said that the recovery of the bodies had begun yesterday afternoon. He also went onto say that because of the speed that the aircraft hit the ground, death would have been instantaneous and of course we already know that they're not necessarily looking for whole bodies, but body parts. On that, the prosecutor had some strong words. He said recovery teams were recovering remains bit by bit, one by one, and bag by bag. And as that recovery is done, those body parts are loaded onto a stretcher, they're taken to a morgue area on the side of the mountain. And that is where the process of formal identification and declaration of death is done. What he also said describing the area as very dangerous and very mountainous said that investigators were working in teams of two accompanied by experienced mountain guides. That enabled many teams to fan out across the mountain side and they were looking and marking any spots where they found body parts or significant parts of the plane as well. But he said it was a task that is going to take a long time. At one point in the press conference, he said recovering all the bodies could take several weeks. He then went on and gave a little bit more precision and said perhaps by the end of next week or by the end of the following week most of the recovery of bodies could be complete -- Wolf?</s>BLITZER: Yeah, and then French prosecutor with the chilling words that the cockpit voice recorder, in the final seconds before the plane crashed into the French Alps, said they could hear people screaming inside the plane, inside the cabin. Karl, we'll check back with you. Very chilling information. Coming up, much more on the deliberate crash in the French Alps. We'll also be answering your questions. Our panel of experts are here. Stay with us.