French air disaster black box 'damaged', sent to Paris

The cockpit voice recorder recovered from the wreckage of the Germanwings Airbus that crashed killing all 150 aboard has been found damaged and has being taken to Paris for analysis, a source close to the inquiry said Wednesday.

"The black box that was found is the CVR," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) "was damaged. It has been transferred to Paris this morning."

A second so-called black box, in this case recording flight data, has yet to be found on the mountain in the French Alps where the Airbus A320 went down Tuesday.

Meanwhile a search and rescue operations restarted on Wednesday at the site where a Germanwings Airbus A320 smashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Helicopters took over from a nearby improvised base, heading for the remote area of the Alps where the plane crashed on Tuesday, spreading debris over a wide area. AFP