Around 350 friends and relatives of the victims of the Airbus plane crash are being ushered into a crisis centre at Barcelona airport.

There are councillors on hand ... and medics, who will take DNA samples to compare to the remains of the 150 passengers when they're recovered.

CNN's Karl Penhaul says many of them are hugging one another as they approached, many of them in tears.

"Tomorrow Lufthansa is studying the possibility of perhaps flying those people to France so they could be closer to the recovery efforts, closer to first hand information."

Meanwhile conditions in the crash area are difficult, with the pieces of the plane high in mountainous terrain.

French air accident investigators are on the way to the alpine area where a German Airbus has slammed into rugged terrain, killing all 150 passengers.

The investigators include a three man team from Germany and experts from Airbus.

But CNN's Nic Robertson says it's going to be a very tough job.

"The debris...is scattered across the mountainside and falling down the mountainside."

Nic Robertson says not only will they have to work out what happened - but they'll have to recover the 150 bodies, take them to a nearby village and begin the task of clearing the site.