the recovery operation very much under way. the field that you see behind me a hive of activity for the past few hours, helicopters landing and taking off again. on board those helicopters, police officials as well as inspectors and specialist mountaineers. they re headed of course to the crash site which has been described as pretty grim. it s in a very remote location accessible primarily by air. the terrain there described as difficult. local officials say that when the ill-fated plane crashed, it was pretty much obliterated. wreckage strewn over a wide area including human remains. germany s foreign minister flew over the site yesterday. he said it was a photo of horror. and that is what these recovery officials are going to be
later germanwings flights back to germany, they said look lightning is not going to strike twice on the same day. we re quite happy to board this flight. although of course our thoughts are with the passengers who were on that earlier flight and who lost their lives, christine. karl penhaul, thank you for that. the weather in the french alps expected to make the work of recovery crews even tougher. i want to bring in meteorologist pedram javaheri for the latest on that. yes, you know this part of the world on wednesday, the weather pattern as rough as it gets. some fog, freezing rain snowfall. you look at the terrain, near vertical flow. this is 60 to 70-degree slopes. having ice, perhaps snow on there as we head into the afternoon hours of wednesday. here s the track of the flight. notice the thunderstorms as it approached the region where it made last point of contact there. actually well to the south. we know weather probably not a factor as the plane went down. impressive dep
difficult conditions. but, you know, earlier we saw some four helicopters land in the field just behind me which officials have been using as a staging operation for the air efforts. those helicopters have flown off, presumably for the crash site. we ve heard from a spokesperson for the interior minister say that the crash site has been secured and that he said that if all goes well they hope to helicopter into place police later today. now, that crash site has been problematic for officials. it s in an extremely remote location accessible primarily by air. the terrain there described as difficult. and the wreckage strewn across a wide area. local officials saying the plane had been completely obliterated, so this is going to be a very slow and painstaking process, officials say. now, we re also hearing this
valley where this plane went down. let s bring in cnn s erin mmc mclaughlin at the recovery staging area about six miles from the crash site. erin, what are you seeing this morning? reporter: hi christine. well, the field that you see behind me may look pretty empty right now, but over the past few hours, it has been a hive of activity. helicopters landing and then taking off again. on board those helicopters, inspectors police officers as well as specialist mountaineers. they re heading to the crash site a site that has been described as being pretty grim. it s in a remote location accessible primarily by air. the terrain there described as difficult. local officials say that when the plane impacted it was pretty much obliterated. wreckage strewn over a wide area including human remains. the german foreign minister flew over the crash site yesterday after which he said that it
me has been a hive of activity for the past few hours. we ve seen a number of helicopters land and then take off again. on board those helicopters are police officials, mountaineering specialists as well as investigators, all heading to that crash site a site that has been problematic for officials. it s in an extremely remote location accessible mainly by air. the terrain there has been described by local officials as difficult. and the plane, upon impact local officials say was pretty much obliterated with wreckage strewn across a wide area including human remains. local officials say it could take them at least a week to search the area let alone begin to recover bodies and piece together what exactly happened to that ill-fated flight. meanwhile, this morning in