Reports: One pilot locked out of cockpit before crash

Evidence collected from the cockpit voice recorder of the crashed German airliner indicates one pilot left the cockpit before the plane began its descent and was unable to get back in, according to media reports.

The New York Times cited a senior military official involved with the investigation who described audio recovered from the black box recorder.

"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,'' the investigator told the newspaper. "And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. ... You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.''

Agence France-Presse, citing a source close to the investigation, reported that the recordings picked up the sound of someone pushing a seat back and the door of the cockpit opening and closing.

AFP's source further noted that there was no conversation from when the knocking began to the time of the crash. An alarm indicating how close the ground was before impact could also be heard on the recording, the source said.

The reports raised grave new questions about the cause of the crash, which killed all 150 people aboard the Germanwings Airbus A320 flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf that went down in rugged Alps terrain of France. Officials said air controllers heard no distress call from the jet and that the pilots did not respond to radio communications as it descended into the mountains.

A third American was listed Wednesday among the 150 people killed in the crash. Investigators searched five acres of debris for a second black box they hoped would explain why the Airbus A320 made an unexpected descent, without warning, into the towering mountains.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed the additional American fatality but did not identify the victim.

Two Americans were listed earlier by French officials as among those killed aboard the plane that went down en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.

They were identified as Yvonne Selke, a contract worker for Booz Allen Hamilton for nearly 23 years, and her daughter, Emily Selke, a 2013 graduate of Drexel University. They were from Nokesville, Va.

"Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke," the family said in a statement. "Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers."

Officials investigating the crash of the airliner said they have been able to extract critical audio data from one badly damaged black box and were anxious to locate the second box, which contains electronic data.

Asked if there was any hints as to the cause of the crash from the scraps of "usable audio" on the cockpit recorder, Remi Jouty, director of France's aviation investigative agency, said it was too soon even to say whether the captain or the co-pilot is speaking on the recording.

Investigators and government officials, including at the White House, said they have found no link to terrorism but conceded that it was too early to make any determination about the cause of the crash Tuesday.

"We cannot completely rule out terrorism, but it is not considered the most likely explanation at the moment," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told French news media. "We need to let the investigation do its work."

Germany's interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, likewise told reporters Wednesday that there is "no concrete evidence that third parties were involved in the causes of the crash," Reuters reported.

The mystery is particularly striking because the crew of the Germanwings plane, in the final radio transmission to air traffic controllers, did not indicate any problems with the aircraft that almost immediately began dropping from 38,000 feet to below 6,000 within 10 minutes over the towering Alps.

"We still cannot understand what happened yesterday," said Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa, which owns the low-cost airline."Lufthansa has never in its history lost an aircraft in cruise flight. We cannot understand how an airliner that was in perfect technical condition, with two experienced Lufthansa pilots, was involved in such a terrible accident."

Among the victims were 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.

Thomas Winkelmann, CEO of Germanwings, said the list is not complete because the airline is trying to contact relatives of 27 victims. He also said that the nationality of some victims is unclear, partly because of dual citizenship. The dead included two infants, two opera singers and 16 German high school students.

The list of nationalities was released as search-and-recovery operations resumed.

"The accident site is difficult to reach," said Jouty. "(Five acres) is a lot but not immense. If we go through it carefully, we will find the (other) recorder. Those are designed to withstand serious crashes."

Despite conflicting reports, including one from French President Francois Hollande that at least parts of the second recorder had been found, Jouty said it was still missing.

"We have not located the black box," he said."We have not found any debris of the black box. And in the history of air accidents, we know of boxes that are very damaged, but I don't remember any recorder broken into pieces."

Lufthansa planned to fly relatives of the victims to a family assistance center near the crash site on Thursday. Spohr said the accident had caused "terrible pain."

French President Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy flew by helicopter to the operations base in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes near the crash site to pay their respects to the victims and to greet search teams.

Contributing: William M. Welch