Officials warn the operation could last for days in a remote mountain ravine between Digne and Barcelonnette.
The leaders of Germany, France and Spain are due to visit the crash site.
The Airbus A320 - flight 4U 9525 - from Barcelona to Duesseldorf crashed after an eight-minute rapid descent, officials say. There were no survivors.
Officials believe 67 of those on board the plane were German citizens, including 16 pupils returning from an exchange trip.
More than 40 passengers were believed to be Spanish and the flight was also carrying citizens of Australia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it was "sadly likely" that some British nationals were on board.
Germanwings, a low-cost airline owned by Germany's main carrier Lufthansa, has an excellent safety record. French, Spanish and German leaders have expressed shock.
'Picture of horror'
Using helicopters, a recovery team reached the site on Tuesday and later found the one of the two "black box" flight recorders - a key step in establishing what caused the crash.
The interior ministry confirmed on Wednesday it was the cockpit voice recorder and had been damaged in the crash, although it could still provide information.
Finding the second box - the flight data recorder - will be a key aim of Wednesday's search operation.
A team of police officers spent the night on the mountain and are being joined by investigators who will search through the debris.
French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy are expected to travel to the crash scene later on Wednesday.
Mr Rajoy has already declared three days of national mourning in Spain.
Footage shot from one of the helicopters on Tuesday showed small plane parts scattered on the rocky mountainside.
"The site is a picture of horror," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after being flown over the ravine.
"Everything is pulverised. The largest pieces of debris are the size of a small car. No-one can access the site from the ground," Gilbert Sauvan, president of the general council Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told the Associated Press.
Sandrine Boisse, a tourism official from the ski resort of Pra Loup, told the BBC that she believed she had heard a strange noise in the mountains at around 11:00 (10:00 GMT).
"At first we thought it was on the ski slopes, an avalanche, but it wasn't the same noise," she said.
Source: Ghana/starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
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