16 German teens assumed dead in France air crash
Mar 24, 2015
Sixteen German teenagers on a school trip to Spain were on board the doomed aircraft that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday killing all 150 passengers and crew, authorities said.
HALTERN - Sixteen German teenagers on a school trip to Spain were on board the doomed aircraft that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday killing all 150 passengers and crew, authorities said.
"The city is deeply saddened," said Bodo Klimpel, the mayor of Haltern am See, the students' hometown in northwestern Germany.
A grab taken from a video made available by the French Interior Ministry on March 24, 2015 shows the crash site in the French Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne, of the GermanWings Airbus A320 jet that crashed earlier in the day with 150 people onboard. The jet had taken off from Barcelona in Spain and was headed for Duesseldorf in Germany. AFP PHOTO / HO / FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTRY
"Everyone is in a state of shock. It is the worst thing you can imagine."
The teenagers and their two teachers had been on a week-long exchange trip to Spain, and their names were on the passenger manifest of the Barcelona-Duesseldorf Germanwings flight, Klimpel told a news conference, fighting back tears.
Although rescue crews have not yet reached the crash site in a remote area of the French Alps, "we have to assume the worst," he said.
A grab taken from a video made available by the French Interior Ministry on March 24, 2015 shows the crash site in the French Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne, of the GermanWings Airbus A320 jet that crashed earlier in the day with 150 people onboard. The jet had taken off from Barcelona in Spain and was headed for Duesseldorf in Germany. AFP PHOTO / HO / FRENCH INTERIOR MINISTRY
Outside their school, fellow students lit candles for the victims, who were 10th graders studying Spanish.
French officials said there were no survivors among the 144 passengers and six crew board the Germanwings Airbus 320 jet when it crashed near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.
Marti Pujol, mayor of Llinars de Valles, a village near Barcelona, said pupils at the Instituto Giola which the German visitors had attended during their exchange were being given counseling to help cope with the tragedy.
AFP