German Schoolchildren Among Victims of France Plane Crash--Update

By Harriet Torry in Berlin And Christopher Bjork in Madrid 

A group of German teenagers returning home from a school exchange in Spain were among the victims of Tuesday's deadly plane crash in the French Alps, officials said.

"It's tragic, I'm stunned," Sylvia Löhrmann, schools minister for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, told WDR radio. The schoolgroup was on board Germanwings flight 4U9525, the minister said, but she couldn't confirm the exact number of pupils.

An official from the town of Haltern am See said 14 students and two teachers from the Joseph König secondary school in Haltern am See had been booked on the flight, and suspected they were among the crash victims.

"We must fear that that's the case," said Hans-Josef Böing, deputy mayor of the community of about 38,000 in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

Mr. Böing said local authorities are providing pastoral and psychological support to the families of pupils.

North-Rhine Westphalia, whose capital Düsseldorf was the plane's intended destination from Barcelona, will fly flags on public buildings at half-mast on Tuesday and Wednesday to mourn the crash.

The schoolchildren booked on the flight had attended classes at the public high school Instituto Giola de Llinars, said Josep Aixandri, a council member at town hall of Llinars del Vallés, which is a 40 minutes' drive north of the city of Barcelona.

Mr. Aixandri said people in this town of 9,500 inhabitants were shaken by news of the crash. "They were staying at the homes of local families, " he said. Mr. Aixandri's daughter, he added, had hosted one of the children booked on the flight.

As word of the crash spread, there was confusion at first in Llinars del Vallés: Two groups of German children were visiting the town this week. The students in the second group, which had attended a private high school in town, are scheduled to fly back to Germany Wednesday, Mr. Aixandri said.

The Airbus A320 airplane crashed in a remote part of the Alps in southern France earlier Tuesday. French President François Hollande said the conditions of the accident suggest there are no survivors.

Write to Harriet Torry at [e-mail] and Christopher Bjork at [e-mail]

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