Annika Sondenheimer, the captain's wife, was serving as a speaker in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament at around 11:30 a.m. when the news broke that a plane had crashed on its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. She quickly realized it was the plane her husband was piloting. Around the same time, aviation accident investigators from Germany headed straight to the French Alps to determine the cause of the crash. Police officers also flew helicopters to the difficult-to-access crash site. At an altitude of 1,800 meters, a field of debris lay before them.