Seyne-les-Alpes (France): French investigators cracked open a mangled black box and extracted audio from its cockpit voice recorder today, but gleaned no explanation for why a German plane dropped unexpectedly and smashed into a rugged Alpine mountain, killing all 150 on board.

The orange cockpit voice recorder, dented, twisted and scarred by the impact, is considered the key to knowing why the pilots of Germanwings Flight 9525 lost radio contact with air traffic controllers over the French Alps then crashed yesterday during a routine flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.