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ByGregKellerand Angela Charlton The Associated Press SEYNE-LES-ALPES, FRANCE A black box recovered from the scene and pulver- ized pieces of debris strewn across Alpine mountain- sides held clues to what caused a German jetliner to take an unexplained eight- minute dive Tuesday mid- way through a flight from Spain to Germany, appar- ently killing all 150 people on board. The victims included two babies, two opera sing- ers and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades. The Airbus A320 oper- ated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Luf- thansa, was less than an hour from landing in Dues- seldorf on a flight from Bar- celona when it unexpect- edly went into a rapid de- scent. The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost ra- dio contact with their con- trol center, France's avia- tion authority said, deep- ening the mystery. While investigators searched through debris from Flight 9525 on steep and desolate slopes, families across Europe reeled with shock and grief. Sobbing rel- atives at both airports were led away by airport workers and crisis counselors. "The site is a picture of horror. The grief of the families and friends is im- measurable," German For- eign Minister Frank-Wal- ter Steinmeier said after being flown over the crash scene. "We must now stand together. We are united in our great grief." It took investigators hours to reach the site, led by mountain guides to the craggy ravine in the south- ern French Alps, not far from the Italian border and the French Riviera. Video shot from a heli- copter and aired by BFM TV showed rescuers walk- ing in the crevices of a rocky mountainside scat- tered with plane parts. Pho- tos of the crash site showed white flecks of debris across a mountain and larger air- plane body sections with windows. A helicopter crew that landed briefly in the area saw no signs of life, French officials said. "Everything is pulver- ized. The largest pieces of debris are the size of a small car. No one can access the site from the ground," Gil- bert Sauvan, president of the general council, Alpes- de-Haute-Provence, told The Associated Press. "This is pretty much the worst thing you can imag- ine," said Bodo Klimpel, mayor of the German town of Haltern, rent with sorrow after losing 16 tenth grad- ers and their two teachers. The White House and the airline chief said there was no sign that terrorism was involved, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged reporters not to spec- ulate on the cause. "We still don't know much beyond the bare in- formation on the flight, and there should be no specu- lation on the cause of the crash," she said in Berlin. "All that will be investi- gated thoroughly." Lufthansa Vice Presi- dent Heike Birlenbach told reporters in Barcelona that for now "we say it is an ac- cident." In Washington, the White House said Ameri- can officials were in contact with their French, Spanish and German counterparts. "There is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time," said U.S. National Security Council spokes- woman Bernadette Meehan. Merkel, French Presi- dent Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minis- ter Mariano Rajoy were to visit the site Wednesday. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a black box had been located at the crash site and "will be immediately investigated." He did not say whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder. The two devices — actu- ally orange boxes designed to survive extreme heat and pressure — should provide investigators with a sec- ond-by-second timeline of the plane's flight. The voice recorder takes audio feeds from four mi- crophones within the cock- pit and records all the con- versations between the pi- lots, air traffic controllers as well as any noises heard in the cockpit. The flight data recorder captures 25 hours' worth of information on the position and condition of al- most every major part in a plane. FRANCE Plane crash in Alps kills 150 people German high school students on trip among those lost CLAUDEPARIS—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS A rope hangs from a rescue helicopter flying past debris of the Germanwings passenger jet, scattered on the mountainside in the French Alps on Tuesday. By Josh Lederman The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that the U.S. will slow its military with- drawal from Afghanistan, maintaining 9,800 troops in the country through the end of 2015 instead of cut- ting the number by about half as originally planned. "Afghanistan remains a very dangerous place," Obama said in explaining his decision at a press con- ference after Afghan Pres- ident Ashraf Ghani's first visit to the White House since his election six months ago. Obama added that the size of the U.S. troop presence for 2016 will be decided later this year. Ghani had asked Obama to slow the withdrawal because Afghan security forces are bracing for a tough spring fighting sea- son and are also contend- ing with Islamic State fighters looking to recruit on their soil. The original plan was to cut the U.S. force to 5,500 by the end of this year. Obama said he still in- tends to complete the drawdown by the end of 2016 and that the U.S. transition out of a combat role has not changed. "We want to make sure we're doing everything we can to help Afghan secu- rity forces succeed so we don't have to go back," Obama said. He said he and the U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have con- cluded the extra time in the country "is well worth it." 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