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 harriet.torry@wsj.com and Christopher
Bjork at christopher.bjork@wsj.com
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