Photos: Germanwings Flight 4U9525 French Alps Crash Site Found, Black Box Data Recovered

A French army helicopter heads to the Germanwings flight crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, Wednesday, March 25, 2015, after the jetliner crashed Tuesday in the French Alps. French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of a German jetliner on Wednesday and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane on a flight from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, slammed into a mountain. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

On Thursday, it was determined that the co-pilot of the Germanwings jet barricaded himself in the cockpit and intentionally rammed the plane full speed into the French Alps, ignoring the captain’s frantic pounding on the door and the screams of terror from passengers, a prosecutor said Thursday.

In a split second, all 150 people aboard the plane were dead.

This photo provided by the Gendarmerie Nationale shows rescue workers investigating on the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, French Alps, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of the Germanwings plane on Wednesday and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane on a flight from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, slammed into a mountain. (AP Photo/Fabrice Balsamo, Gendarmerie Nationale)

(AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

 

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This photo provided by the Gendarmerie Nationale shows rescue workers investigating on the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, French Alps, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of the Germanwings plane on Wednesday and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane on a flight from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, slammed into a mountain. (AP Photo/Fabrice Balsamo, Gendarmerie Nationale)

 

This photo provided by the Gendarmerie Nationale shows rescue workers being rappelled from an helicopter on the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, French Alps, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of the Germanwings plane on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Fabrice Balsamo, Gendarmerie Nationale)

 

A helicopter of the French civil security services flies near Seyne, south-eastern France, on March 24, 2015, near the site where a Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed in the French Alps. A German airliner crash. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images)

The director of France’s aviation investigative agency says there currently is not the “slightest explanation” for what caused the Germanwings plane to lose altitude and crash in the Alps.

Remi Jouty says the investigation could take weeks or even months.

Jouty says the plane was flying “until the end” — slamming into the mountain, not breaking up in the air.

He says the final communication from the plane was a routine message about permission to continue on its route.

French President Francois Hollande says the case of the second black box has been found, but not its contents.

Speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Hollande promised on Wednesday that French investigators would do everything to determine the cause of the crash.

The missing black box was the flight data recorder, which captures 25 hours’ worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane.

Hollande also said there could be no rescue because it was certain that all 150 people aboard the plane had perished in Tuesday’s crash in the southern French Alps.

A second group of German exchange students visiting the northeastern Spanish town of Llinars del Valles — where 16 high school students that were on the crashed plane stayed — has left for Germany as planned Wednesday.

But some decided to travel by train instead of by plane following the accident.

Llinars del Valles mayor Marti Pujol i Casals said the Institut Ginebro school had informed him that the students had been asked which way they wanted to travel and that some had decided to fly as originally planned while others decided to take the train. He gave no details as to how many traveled by train.

The students were attending a different school in the town from the one attended by the students killed Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.