– ‘Yesterday we were many’ –
The plane was carrying six crew and 144 passengers, including 16 German teenagers returning home from a school trip.
Bereaved pupils from their high school in the small German town of Haltern wept and hugged near a makeshift memorial of candles as they pulled together to share the pain of losing their friends.
“Yesterday we were many, today we are alone,” read a hand-painted sign at the school, decorated with 16 crosses – one for each of the victims, most around 15 years old.
Compounding the tragedy, it emerged that those killed had won the trip in a lottery of their classmates, reported local daily the Halterner Zeitung.
Also on board were opera singers Oleg Bryjak, 54, and Maria Radner, 33, flying to their home city of Duesseldorf. Radner was travelling with her husband and baby, one of two infants on board the plane.
It was the deadliest air crash on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed, killing 346 people.
Lufthansa said the aircraft was carrying citizens of 18 countries. Three Americans and three Britons were confirmed among the victims.
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Holland, Israel, Japan, Mexico and Morocco also had nationals on board, according to officials.
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