When General David Galtier hovered above the French Alps in a helicopter on 24 March 2015 he could not see the 60-tonne plane he was looking for.

Instead he saw thousands and thousands of little pieces of metal. “There was nothing,” he says. “Only these little stars shining in the mountains.”

Ten years on, he recalls to Josephine McDermott how he led the police’s search operation, from the moment he heard about the disappearance of Flight 4U 9525, to the handing back of the victims’ possessions.

In the first 24 hours, the possibility that such a routine, short-haul flight cruising with two experienced pilots on board could end in the loss of 150 people was almost impossible to comprehend.

Then, Gen Galtier heard the cockpit voice recorder which revealed the last efforts from air traffic control to communicate with Andreas Lubitz who had locked himself in the cockpit. Investigators drew the harrowing conclusion that he had intended to crash the plane.

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(Photo: The memorial site of the Germanwings plane crash. Credit: AP)

The Germanwings plane crash

Witness History