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On board slowly descended to their doom. it could be just a matter of hours now before investigators get their first real listen at the pilots final words. today, recovery teams dropped to the crash site from helicopters that were flying overhead. officials caution now that the process of mapping the debris and piecing together this puzzle is just a huge undertaking. now teams have begun the daunting and heartbreaking task of identifying the victims bodies. the state department confirmed just a couple hours ago that three americans were on the plane when it crashed. want to get to cnn aviation correspondent rene marsh. so many new developments today, including we heard from the company. reporter: right. just a short time ago, lufthansa s ceo says they are struggling to understand how an airplane that was in perfect technical condition with two experienced pilots was involved in such a terrible accident. tonight, investigators are closer to answering some of the many unanswered ques ....
translator: on friday we were with them all day on a field trip to the beach. they were really happy because they had never seen the ocean. it s hard to believe. reporter: for many of the victims, death came in the prime of their lives. 28-year-old paul andrew bramley from britain was studying hospitality and set to begin an internship next week. a 29-year-old mechanical engineer greg friday was traveling with his mother who celebrated a birthday the day before the flight. today, investigators scoured the grim scene to identify more passengers whose lives were cut much too short. john raymond selke, who lost his wife as well as his daughter he spoke with cnn, obviously very distraught. really does not want to speak on camera. but he simply thanked people for their prayers and for their support and also asked us to respect their privacy. our sympathies go out to that ....
Tapper. continuing our breaking news coverage in the investigation into the crash of germanwings flight 9525. right now, investigators are carefully examining the plane s recovered cockpit voice recorder with the hope that it might contain a treasure trove of valuable information in determining what caused this plane to crash. but they also continue to focus on the flight s path. cnn s tom foreman is in the virtual room. tom, what can you learn from the path of this plane compared to past airline disasters? well maybe a lot if you can find similarities. let s start by looking at some plane flights just as they are. here s one we will look at alaska air. this was a terrible crash over the west coast, flight 261. they had a massive mechanical failure on this flight. let me bring in a chart that will show the last 15 minutes of the flight. let s talk about what this plane did. as this plane lost its ability to be controlled by these pilots you can see them wrestling with the plane for a ....
Situation? honestly, what stands out to me is that government matters. in the case of the united states, we have the tsa, homeland security, faa, all these layers of security that have since 9/11, prevented anything like this from happening. the fact this government in malaysia is so woefully behind in ascertaining what happened, that to to me is what s standing out. it is flat-out remarkable that this many days into it we have no idea where that plane is at. i would add to that that i ve seen alaska airline had a plane crash in 2000, flight 261. i vividly remember footage of the debris in the water. so the fact that there has been no debris found, means that that plane is somewhere. we haven t located it. it is just astounding. it is. alaska flight attendant. veda shook. thank you for joining me. ....
Here s george howell. reporter: this is where it all started. a 9-year-old boy walked off a light railcar thursday and into the minneapolis airport with plans to travel, but no ticket. he passed through the security checkpoints of tsa screening, no problem. then he continued on to the g concourse, specifically here at gate g-4. it s still unclear how he got past the ticket agent who is collecting tickets here. what we do know is this minor did board flight 261 and traveled 1600 miles to las vegas. officials say it wasn t until the flight crew became suspicious because he was traveling alone and contacted las vegas metropolitan police took the child into custody upon landing. i think they should take him to the table and let him play a little because his luck was doing well. reporter: terry tripler said ....