(USA TODAY) -- Two Americans were among the 150 people killed when a German airliner crashed into the Alps after making an unexpectedly abrupt descent, the CEO of Germanwings said Wednesday.
Germanwings' chief executive Thomas Winklelmann told reporters in Cologne that the dead also included 72 Germans and 35 Spaniards. There were two victims each from Australia, Argentina, Iran and Venezuela. One each came from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel.
Winkelmann said the list is not complete because the airlines is trying to contact relatives of 27 victims. He also said that the nationality of some victims is unclear, partly because of dual nationality. British officials said they believed that three British citizens were among the victims.
Among the passengers aboard the Airbus A320 were two infants, two opera singers and 16 German high school students, French officials said. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades.
The list of nationalities was released as search and recovery operations resumed at the high-altitude site.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told RTL radio on Wednesday that the cockpit voice recorder that was recovered on Tuesday, was damaged. He said it "must be reconstituted in the coming hours in order to be usable."
The second black box has not been recovered.
Government minister Segolene Royal said what happened during the minutes 10:30 and 10:31 a.m. was key to the investigation, the Associated Press reported, After that time, controllers were unable to make contact with the plane.
Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for the ministry, told French network iTele that recovery crews are expected to reach the crash site on Wednesday morning, according to the AP.
French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy are expected to arrive at the scene later Wednesday.
French Transport Secretary Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio that the government plans to release information from the recorder as soon as it can be verified.
Officials previously warned that due to the remoteness of the crash site and difficult weather conditions the operation could last for days. A full passenger list not been released, but the majority of those killed were German and Spanish nationals.
Germanwings said an accident is the most likely cause of the crash and the White House issued a statement on Tuesday saying that no link to terrorism had been found.
The crash so distressed Germanwings crews that many did not show up for work, forcing mass flight cancellations, the RT news organization reported.
"One must not forget: many of our Germanwings crews have known crew members who were on board the crashed plane," Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said in a written statement.
Lufthansa owns Germanwings, which was forced to cancel 30 flights across Europe, the Bild and RT news organizations reported.
Lufthansa and Germanwings called for a minute's silence to commemorate the victims at 10.53 a.m. local time Wednesday, and German officials said flags were flying at half staff.
First responders and police were let down from helicopter cables into the crash zone on Tuesday before the search was ended for the day by darkness. A group of them spent the night to secure the area.
