French investigators: Co-pilot accelerated plane on descent

The damaged black box flight data recorder is seen in this photo released April 3, 2015 by the BEA, France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (Air Accident Investigator) from the Germanwings Airbus A320 crash.[Photo/Agencies]

"I found a pile of clothes, we were searching it, we were moving them downhill and while doing this I discovered a box. The color of the box was the same as the gravel, of the black gravel, that is everywhere at the crash site," she told reporters in Seyne-les-Alpes.

So-called black boxes are actually orange, but this one had burned up in the crash and blended with the dark earth covering the area, known to local guides as "the black lands."

"I didn't realize I had found it and I wasn't thinking it was possible to find it among all this debris," she said.

Mountain officers and trained dogs are continuing to search the site. When the terrain is fully cleared of body parts and belongings, a private company will take out the large airplane debris.