Two Americans Said to be on Board Flight.  Leaders of Germany, France and Spain to Visit Site.  Soon: World Leaders Speak Near Crash Site. 
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: He could commercialize it and not just help his grandfather but many others.</s>MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: That's great. Thank you.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, have a great day. NEWSROOM starts now.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news,</s>COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. We begin with breaking news on the crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps. Two Americans now among the 150 people killed. That late word coming from the airline CEO just about an hour ago. The U.S. State Department has not confirmed that report yet. We do not know their names or where they're from. We should be getting more information in the next hour or so. Also happening right now, a live look at the crash staging area. The leaders of Germany, France, and Spain will soon be arriving for a first-hand look at the wreckage. If any of those leaders speak we'll be sure to bring that to you live. Also new this hour, we have new pictures of the black box that's been recovered. The voice flight data recorder is badly damaged. Crews hope to have it working within hours. Key in the investigation, the last eight minutes of that flight. We're covering all the angels of this story. Our correspondents are at the site. They're in the countries that are now mourning the loss of all of those aboard. But let's begin with the breaking news. The two Americans are among those killed in the crash. CNN's Diana Magnay is in Germany this morning to tell us more.</s>DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. Well, that's all I can tell you about these Americans, just that two have been confirmed as having been on board. As you said, we don't know their names, where they came from. We will be following up on that information, but we do have fresh numbers from the CEO of Germanwings as to the numbers of people from which country were killed. We know that 72 from Germany and 37, he says, from Spain. In fact, the Spanish Interior Ministry suggests it was a little more than that. And obviously this flight was flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Spain and Germany, the worst affected. But there are also people, that Great Britain has confirmed one dead. The Netherlands, Colombia, Australia, or Argentina are beginning to learn more about the people who are killed. I'm here in the town of Haltern am See. This school behind me lost 16 exchange students who had been on a language exchange program in Spain and were coming back from a week away. The headmaster said tragically they left here, 16 happy students. And now we have this terrible tragedy. And the two teachers who accompanied them, one of them was newly married. And these stories just keep on coming. This town effectively in mourning. All morning the students have been coming to lay flowers behind me in the church in the center of town. There is also a book of condolences where they are writing their sorrow. And earlier we spoke to one of the classmates of those that were killed. Let's have a listen to what she said.</s>PHILIPPE, FRIEND OF STUDENTS ABOARD FLIGHT: I knew all of them. They were all in my grade and to some I was very close. And yes, there was one friend of me also and we already planned things for the future. What we're going to do when they returned from their trip so it's very hard to believe that we cannot do that.</s>MAGNAY: And Carol, these are just some of the stories that are beginning to trickle in. And so many across Europe and across the world mourn the death of those who died in the alps yesterday -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Diana Magnay reporting live from Germany this morning. Now let's head back to the crash site. Right now some nations are paying their respects to lost countrymen. The leaders of Germany, France, and Spain are arriving for a firsthand look at the crash site in the foothills of the French Alps. Let's begin with the leaders' visit to the crash site. CNN's Erin McLaughlin is at the staging area to tell us more.</s>ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right. The leaders of Germany, France, and Spain are expected to arrive in this area. We do not believe they will be going to the actual crash site because it is in a remote and difficult to reach location, but they are expected to meet with emergency workers in this area who are taking part in a recovery mission that is still very much ongoing in the field just behind me. All morning we've been seeing helicopters flying in and flying out, full of forensic experts, mountaineering experts and investigators. We understand from local officials that they have managed to reach the crash site, at least some of the choppers, and the crash site, as I mentioned, is extremely remote, reachable really only by air. The terrain there described as incredibly difficult, even icy conditions that they're having to deal with and local officials say that the plane was completely obliterated on impact. The wreckage strewn over a wide area, including human remains. And those remains really a priority for officials, a priority for the people here in France to begin that very important identification process of the 150 people that were aboard that plane to begin to remove those bodies. They have yet to remove even one so far so that they can be returned to their loved ones. They're also working to try and figure out what exactly happened to this ill-fated flight. We understand from France's Interior minister this morning, he said that the cockpit voice recorder was recovered yesterday, but it had been damaged, although not irreparably. They're working to repair it and they're hoping that happens in the coming hours -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Tell us more about that flight data recorder because we had expected to have some information in the coming hours. Is that still true?</s>MCLAUGHLIN: Yes, I believe what was recovered yesterday was the cockpit voice recorder. It's still unclear where the other black box is. No doubt something that they're looking for as I speak, but we understand, again from France's Interior minister that it had been damaged and they're working to fix it. And it seems like they're optimistic that they'll be getting some information at least today in that regard -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Erin McLaughlin, reporting live for us from the crash site. Thank you so much. I want to turn now to the investigation. Joining me CNN safety analyst Peter Goelz. He's the former NTSB managing director. I'm also joined by former Northwest Airlines pilot and flight instructor, Scott Miller. Welcome to you both. And thanks for being with me. I appreciate it.</s>PETER GOELZ, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Thank you for having us.</s>SCOTT MILLER, FORMER NORTHWEST AIRLINES PILOT AND FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: My pleasure.</s>COSTELLO: Lots of information coming in to us right now. There are at least two different timelines, but this is what French officials are telling us this morning. 10:30 in the morning local time all seems well with this flight. At 10:31 the plane starts to descend without authorization. Controllers reach out but get no answer from the cockpit. At 10:35 the plane is at 6500 feet and then it simply disappears from the radar. 10:53 the plane apparently crashes. Now, Peter, the crucial time is between 10:30 and 10:31. Why?</s>GOELZ: Well, you know, you need to know what the last moments were like. What was the flight crew doing? And hopefully the voice recorder, which is really profoundly damaged, they will be able to extract the voices from the chips in the recorder. It may take some time but they'll get that data. We need to know what the pilots were doing, what they were saying, if they were communicating. If we don't have that last moments, it's going to deepen the mystery and we won't know what they were focused on.</s>COSTELLO: And you mentioned that the cockpit voice recorder is damaged, Peter. Does that mean that we might not know what happened during that crucial minute?</s>GOELZ: No, I think -- I mean, first of all, it just shows the profound force that that plane hit the mountain with. I mean, it was going at an extraordinary amount of speed and the damage was profound, but they will be able to extract the voices. If there's anything on the recorder, they'll be able to get it. I've seen more damaged recorders where they've gotten voices off the digital devices. So it may take some time but they will get it. But the real key is the data recorder. That's where the key information will be.</s>COSTELLO: Scott, you're a pilot. Air traffic control reached out to this pilot, to this cockpit at 10:31. No answer. Describe a scenario where you or your co-pilot would not answer or send a distress call.</s>MILLER: Well, I've been thinking a lot about that and unfortunately, a direct answer to that question; I'm having a really hard time coming up with one. When we are operating the aircraft, even if everything is perfectly normal or if we are encountering some adverse conditions, we ensure it is being flown, we ensure it's on the proper flight path and we ensure we're communicating properly. The lack of communication especially during the eight-minute descent is very troubling and very curious at this point.</s>COSTELLO: So even if you were trying to right the plane and the plane was in the process of crashing, let's say, you could find some time or the co-pilot could find some time to at least send out a distress call.</s>MILLER: Yes, that's true. And this -- the eight-minute descent, it does appear obviously that that was an unusual event and that something very compelling caused the crew to make the decision to start down, but during that eight-minute time frame there should have been adequate time, more than enough time to even get a quick message out about why they were descending. For example, in a -- if they had experienced a pressurization problem, and of course this is just pure speculation right now, but if they had a pressurization problem we have an actual checklist that we follow to get the aircraft safely descended. And printed on that checklist is an ACT communication item.</s>COSTELLO: Interesting. So, Peter, I'd like you to take a look at the wreckage and you're going to see the wreckage in just a second here. And you're going to see circled areas. And these -- the pieces of wreckage in these circled areas are likely pieces of the tail section because there's red on the tail section. There are few bigger pieces of the fuselage about the size of a car. As an investigator, what can you discern from this debris field?</s>GOELZ: Well, you know, this -- you know, we've seen debris fields like this in the past. You can go back to ValuJet, the plane that crashed in the Everglades virtually disintegrated as well. I mean, what you determined is, one, it was a very high speed impact. I mean, this plane was going in excess of 400 knots probably when it hit the side of the mountain. You're not going to get much beyond that because the wreckage is so tiny. So the key is going to be the radar data and the flight data recorder. And as Captain Miller indicated, that eight-minute descent where there was no communication is very troubling and very concerning.</s>COSTELLO: So, Scott, I also find it kind of strange that Germanwings has not released the pilot's name or any information about the co- pilot. Why would that be?</s>MILLER: Well, that, again, pure speculation, it could be, you know, something as simple as family notification ahead of time. Ensuring that, you know, in fact the proper names are being released. There may have been a last-minute crew change that may have inserted a little bit of uncertainty into the airlines' record keeping. I wouldn't make a lot of that at this point. I think they're just being very careful with the release of data to ensure proper and correct information is in fact released.</s>COSTELLO: So, Peter, why not release any information, at least, about the co-pilot?</s>GOELZ: Well, I think Captain Miller's right. We don't know. It could be that they're having difficulty reaching out to their next of kin. It may have been a request from German or French authorities. They are going to do extensive background checks on both of these crew members to see whether there's any indication of something that would raise a red flag to investigators. And the -- I think Lufthansa and the French have been very methodical. They have been very precise. They haven't had any missteps either in family assistance or in the investigation. I just think they're doing it in a step-by-step basis. I think we'll get the names of the -- of the crew members in the near future.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Peter Goelz, Scott Miller, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, two Americans are among the crash victims. Will adding U.S. officials to the investigation complicate an already crowded field? We'll talk about that next.</s>COSTELLO: All right. We've just got these pictures in to CNN. You see this helicopter. It just landed near the crash site, at the base of the crash site at the base of the French Alps. You can see three world leaders getting off that chopper, the French President Francois Hollande, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and somewhere in there is the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. I have Richard Quest with me now. It's a wonderful gesture that they're there.</s>RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, you have the three there because obviously the plane departed from Spain, more than 50 passengers on board, 50 of the dead were from Spain, so that's why Mariano Rajoy is there. It was going to Dusseldorf in Germany. Many of the Germans are dead. That's why Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is there. And it was flying over the French Alps. And, of course, there were French citizens onboard the plane as well. So, Francois Hollande is there. It is the French under international rules is the called, to give its correct title, "the state of occurrence", and it is the French that have the business, the BEA of France that do the investigation.</s>COSTELLO: So they'll be the primary investigating arm of this crash, right?</s>QUEST: Absolutely. Absolutely.</s>COSTELLO: Because we now know that two Americans died and you would think the NTSB would get involved in the investigation.</s>QUEST: Every country under ICAO annex 13, to give you its full title, every country that has passengers onboard is allowed to take part. They will see documents. It might be that the NTSB has an accredited representative, because although it was a French built plane, a European built plane, there will be avionics on board that came from American corporations. And in these situations, the NTSB, in the same way as the BEA, and AAIB from Britain, are usually involved in any major incident simply because there is an interest involved and they have the expertise.</s>COSTELLO: Do we have Rene Marsh available? She's our CNN aviation correspondent. Rene Marsh, have you heard anything from the NTSB as of yet this morning?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol. I spoke with the NTSB. And Richard hit it on the head there. Officially the BEA, the French equivalent of the NTSB, will be leading this investigation for all the reasons he laid out. But, still, now that we know two Americans were on board, the NTSB says they are paying close attention. And, of course, they will have access to any information that they are curious about or want to know about because they do have this increased interest. As far as the avionics, of course, there may be, we don't know all the details of what may have been manufactured by U.S. companies at this point. But that, too, raises the interest level for the NTSB. But, officially, they will not be leading the investigation and as of right now as I speak to you, they tell me they are not physically sending someone there, they are monitoring from here. That said, their posture is here that the moment that the BEA says they need any sort of assistance, they're there and ready to go.</s>COSTELLO: I was going to ask you, Richard, too many --</s>QUEST: Just to pause there. I see pictures, that's Mariano Rajoy, the gentleman with the beard who has joined the group in the Seyne- les-Alpes in France. So, you now have the three leaders all gathered near the scene. It was very important for all three of them. Here are the pictures of all of them, Angela Merkel, Francois Holland, Mariano Rajoy at the scene --</s>COSTELLO: I was going to say, it's nice to see the spectacle of this. It's a united front, right, which is important to any investigations.</s>QUEST: Don't forget, these three leaders meet frequently at European councils so they know each other very well. They are constantly negotiating whether it's over Greek debt, or European budgets, or E.U. matters, it's not unusual for them to be together. But this is unusual, it's not often and it speaks to the magnitude and the gravity of what's happened that the three have decided to come together so quickly. This is unusual.</s>COSTELLO: Very unusual. OK, let's talk about the investigation itself. So I heard what Rene said. Everybody's ready to help, but the French are in charge of the investigation. But there will be pressure from outside sources on French investigators to hurry along, won't there be? Might there be?</s>QUEST: There always is pressure. But the French, the BEA, the bureau, they are enormously experienced. Just to pause as they are having a moment of silence.</s>COSTELLO: Let's come back, unless you can speak French. I can't unfortunately.</s>QUEST: There will be pressure but the bureau is extremely experienced. They did air France 447. They did Concord. They've done many, many, many incidents and they're very good at releasing information. They're extremely good. There will be news conferences. There will be press conferences. They produced a phenomenal report on 447.</s>COSTELLO: OK, releasing information because for some information I'm obsessed about the co-pilot. We've heard nothing about the co-pilot. Why is that? Because during the press conference that the airline had, they released information about the pilot, as far as his experience and all, but nothing about the co-pilot.</s>QUEST: It's going to take time. It's less than 24 hours.</s>COSTELLO: But they know who was flying the plane.</s>QUEST: Yes, but you want to put it into digestible fashion. Their first job and duty is not to tell us about the co-pilot. The first job and duty is to deal with the families, the relatives, the crash site, the investigation. Now, I would imagine we will get a report from the BEA very soon that will collate that information. We won't find the name, by the way. We will not find the name, I know you're wanting to know about this.</s>COSTELLO: A lot of people who want to know about it. French officials came out and said they haven't ruled out terrorism but they think it's unlikely. Why did they put it in that exact way?</s>QUEST: Because you would be the first person asking have you ruled out terrorism.</s>COSTELLO: Of course.</s>QUEST: And they haven't. They haven't. They haven't ruled out terrorism. But everything remains on the table. This is so different, this incident. This is out of all the realms. I mean, Rene Marsh has been saying from anything that we've seen before, this is absolutely unusual.</s>COSTELLO: More unusual than Malaysia?</s>QUEST: That was unusual.</s>COSTELLO: I would think that would take the cake. Rene, I want to bring you into this discussion. I guess it's not so unusual for authorities not to release the names of the pilot, the co- pilot or any real information about them until later?</s>MARSH: Right. Even when you look here in the United States, the NTSB, they never release the names of individuals involved in accidents. The names are usually -- that information usually comes, for example, from the airlines but not the NTSB. That's just the way it usually works. So, it doesn't surprise me that at least at this stage, the investigators are not taking it upon themselves to release individual's names. Again, that usually comes from the airline.</s>QUEST: What to just keep in mind as we watch the events unfold over the next few days, Carol, this is a very remote place. It's difficult to get the recovery of the remains and the aircraft and they are wholly engaged in that task. At the same time, Lufthansa has to continue running the airline and Lufthansa has to get all of the documents for that investigation. So we're such early days in this, but I think you're going to see a dramatic increase in information, you're going to see a lot more happening now. Certainly now that we've seen the three leaders.</s>COSTELLO: Well, and they have one of the black boxes although it's very damaged. Peter Goelz says they'll be able to get information out of there despite the damage.</s>QUEST: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: So that's good. So, they'll release that probably fairly quickly?</s>QUEST: They'll release it on their time scale, not on ours. I mean, that's really the way it goes, yes. But here's the interesting point, the NTSB changed the rules by themselves effectively. If you go back to Asiana in San Francisco. Deborah Hersman gave more information than we've ever seen and it's the rest of the world following their normal procedures. It's the U.S. that went on this -- its own frolic of giving much more information, many more press conferences, but luckily the BEA does have a history if we look back at 447 of being very transparent, very open in what they release.</s>COSTELLO: That's good. How does this differ at this point, Rene, than an NTSB investigation? Because the NTSB does hold very lengthy press conferences and they'll inform us beforehand and they'll take questions, et cetera, et cetera.</s>MARSH: Well, I mean, going back to one of the black boxes found -- I mean, when you talk about getting the information off of that, it is not a lengthy process. So to Richard's point, I think it'll be up to the immediate investigators here, the BEA, to determine when they feel it's worth while to release that information. When we're talking about getting tangible evidence or whether -- or information about exactly what happened, that can be done within 24 hours. It's similar to plugging in USB into a computer. That download happens rather quickly. So, we should know a lot of information. Whether they will reveal that as soon as they have it or hold on to that until they have the other black box, so that they can put it all into context, it remains to be seen because, remember, they only have one. And only one box only gives you one side of the story. What investigators may want to do is wait until they find that second box and they can put this into context. They know at what time what happened and what the pilots were saying. Essentially create their own time line so they have a better idea of the chain of events.</s>QUEST: The one thing that I completely agree with, Rene, they will wait until they've got both boxes unless there is something on the cockpit voice recorder that indicates a systemic problem, such as the angle of attack indicators that we've talked about, the uncommanded descent that happened. If there is something on that CVR that indicates that's what happened, and Airbus needs to do something about that, we don't know, I'm just giving you an example. Then they will move very fast to put out some sort of release so that they can deal with it.</s>COSTELLO: Erin McLaughlin, our reporter, is somewhere in that crowd of people. We're trying to get her on the phone right now so she can sort of set the scene. But, obviously, the world leaders are talking to the recovery people. So, we're trying to get her. In the meantime, every time this sort of thing happened, I hear people say, I'm never going to fly again. It's just too dangerous. And I just want Rene, and you, Richard to allay people's fears because flying is absolutely safe, one of the safest modes of transportation, correct?</s>QUEST: Rene, you want to go first?</s>MARSH: We can both go at this, Richard, because, you know, we've been talking about this since yesterday. The reason this sort of events gets so much attention is because this is not a regular occurrence. When you think of the millions of flights that take off, we're talking about the handful of incidents, that is why it could get so much attention, because it is not an everyday occurrence. This particular aircraft we know the fatality rate is something like .14 per every, you know, million flights that take off and land. So, it's an incredibly safe aircraft and air travel itself is incredibly safe, but unfortunately when you have a high profile incident like this which we're not used to seeing when you consider how many flights take off every day, it's going to get this attention.</s>QUEST: Three billion passengers a year. Put that into context, 1,000 -- roughly give or take -- 1,000 fatalities. That puts it into perspective. I was flying back from my last assignment to cover this on an Airbus A320 yesterday. I have absolutely no problem. I will get on one tomorrow. I'll get on one today.</s>COSTELLO: OK. Just to give you the exact statistics around the world, there were just 12 fatal airline accidents last year, 641 people tragically died, but to put that into perspective, that's one accident for every 4.4 million flights.</s>QUEST: Right.</s>COSTELLO: So, on that note, I'll take a break and we'll come back and talk some more.