DNA from 78 Germanwings crash victims found: prosecutor

Forensic teams have isolated 78 distinct DNA strands from body parts recovered from the Germanwings crash site in the French Alps, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.

Prosecutor Brice Robin added that an access road was being built for all-terrain vehicles to reach the site where 150 people died.

The road will help with the removal of large parts of the plane, and could be completed by Monday night, Robin said.

Investigators have faced a huge task in trying to recover bodies and search for a second "black box" at the site, which is extremely hard to access and has required specialist mountain police to accompany search teams.

The Germanwings flight crashed on Tuesday, breaking up on impact and leaving not a single body intact, according to police working at the scene.

French officials say the plane's voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked the captain out of the cockpit of the Germanwings jet and steered Flight 4U 9525 into the mountainside.