Investigators are piecing together who was at the helm of the Germanwings plane that crashed into a mountainside in the French Alps on Tuesday, a safety expert tells NBC News, as victims' families head to the disaster scene. The New York Times reported Wednesday night that one of the pilots left the cockpit and was locked out of it when he tried to return, according to evidence from the plane's cockpit recorder. "The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer," an investigator told the Times. "You can hear he is trying to smash the door down," the investigator added. The director of France's aviation investigation agency said earlier on Wednesday that it could take weeks to analyze the data from one of the plane's voice recorders that had been recovered. NBC News is working to independently confirm The New York Times report.
