At least 72 Germans among dead in Alps crash: Germanwings

March 26, 2015 | 14:51

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Budget airline Germanwings said Wednesday (Mar 25) there were at least 72 Germans on its plane that crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard.

Employees of German airline Germanwings lay down candles and flowers for the victims of the Germanwings plane crash in front of the company's headquarters in Cologne, western Germany. (Photo: AFP/DPA/Marius Becker)

BERLIN: Budget airline Germanwings said Wednesday (Mar 25) there were at least 72 Germans on its plane that crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard.

Company executive Thomas Winkelmann estimated there had been 35 Spanish victims in Tuesday's disaster, a figure far lower than the 49 cited by the Spanish government.

Winkelmann said Germanwings was still working on establishing the countries of origin for all the victims, a task complicated by the fact that some passengers had dual nationality. As 6pm Singapore time on Wednesday, the airline had counted two victims each from Australia, Argentina, Iran, Venezuela and the United States.

Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel each lost at least one of their nationals, Winkelmann said.

The airline said it had established contact with the families of 123 victims and offered grief counselling to them and was working with the German foreign ministry to reach relatives of the last 27. "Taking care of the victims' loved ones is our top priority," Winkelmann told reporters.

Foreign ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said that determining nationalities was doubly difficult because passengers travelling within the Schengen area are not required to show their passports.

"Identifying the victims remains for the French authorities and also for us an urgent task," he told reporters. "We still don't have complete certainty about around 10 per cent of the victims."

The flight was travelling to the western German city of Duesseldorf from Barcelona, Spain when in slammed into the mountains of southeasterrn France on Tuesday.

AFP

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