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Air accident investigators in France will take charge of the labyrinthine investigation into why a perfectly sound aircraft could have crashed into the Alps without warning, with experts not ruling out terrorism at this stage, Sputnik reports.

French air accident investigators — the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile (BEA) — have begun the morbid process of marking the position of every scrap of metal, plastic and composite on the alpine mountainside between Digne and Barcelonette.

The first task of the rescuers in the coming days will be to recover the 150 bodies of the passengers killed on the Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.

After the bodies have been recovered, investigators will seal the site to protect the scene so that every piece of debris from the crashed aircraft can be marked and run into a 3D composite image.

The 3D composite image will then be taken to a huge hangar where the aircraft will be 'reconstructed' in what is grimly called an 'exploded diagram' format. This will allow them to assess where most of the damage is.

In the case of MH17, largely believed to have been shot down over eastern Ukraine, all the parts were taken to the Netherlands, which was the country chosen to carry out the investigation.

This decision was arrived at — under International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules — between the airline operator and the State of Occurrence (Ukraine). In that case, the debris of MH17 landed in a warzone, where it was unprotected and many items were moved or removed.

In the case of 4U 9525, the debris lies in challenging conditions in the French Alps — in rocky terrain, a three hour walk from the nearest road. The fact that all the parts are within one valley points to the obvious conclusion that most of the aircraft was largely intact just before hitting the ground.