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Remains of 15 German classmates killed in Alps plane crash have arrived in their hometown

The coffins of 15 of the 16 classmates killed in the Alps plane crash have arrived in their homet...
Newstalk
Newstalk

07.25 10 Jun 2015


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Remains of 15 German classmate...

Remains of 15 German classmates killed in Alps plane crash have arrived in their hometown

Newstalk
Newstalk

07.25 10 Jun 2015


Share this article


The coffins of 15 of the 16 classmates killed in the Alps plane crash have arrived in their hometown in Germany.

The white hearse convoy, accompanied by a police motorcade, drove past Haltern's Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium, the high school attended by the teenagers.

Mourners gathered outside the building to pay their respects to the pupils, who were returning from an exchange trip in Barcelona with two teachers when the Germanwings plane crashed, killing all 150 people on board.

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Pupils left roses for their dead friends outside the school. They also lit white candles in the playground, where 18 trees were recently planted as a memorial to the deceased.

Earlier, the remains of 44 people, including the 15 children, arrived in Dusseldorf - the city where the doomed flight was supposed to land nearly three months ago.

Their coffins were transported from the French city of Marseilles last night, not far from where co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately slammed the passenger plane into a mountain.

Relatives have been frustrated by delays in returning remains to their grieving families.

Mistakes were made on death certificates, and the condition of the crashed aircraft made it difficult for workers to find and identify victims' remains.

Burials

The first burials will be held on Friday and the final ones will be at the end of the month. One of the teenagers will not be buried in Haltern.

Ulrich Wessel, the high school's principal, said: "This entire event is a tragedy, especially for the parents, but we too lost our students and colleagues.

"It's especially difficult for the students of grade 10. There used to be 150 students, now they are only 134 ... many lost their best friends."

Elmar Giemulla, a lawyer representing the families of 34 victims, said many relatives are still "in denial" about the crash.

"They cannot and do not want to realise that their children are dead," he added.

"It will be brutal when they see the coffins, but it is necessary, because they need closure and that's only possible if they accept that their children are dead."

Burials for the first 44 victims to be repatriated are expected to begin in the coming days, with the remains of other passengers to be sent home in the coming weeks.

There were travellers from 19 different countries on board the Airbus A320, which took off from Barcelona on March 24. Nearly half of the victims were German, and 47 were Spanish.

On Thursday, the prosecutor leading the crash inquiry, Brice Robin, is due to meet victims' relatives in Paris to discuss the repatriation process, and the discovery of DNA evidence.

Investigators believe Lubitz, 27, had been hiding psychological problems from his employer.


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