Families gather at site of Germanwings plane crash to mark 10 years since tragedy
Hundreds of people have gathered to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Germanwings plane crash that killed 150.
Family members of the victims travelled to the scene of the crash in the French Alps on Monday morning, where flight 9525 was brought down by co-pilot Andreas Lubitz on the afternoon of 24 March 2015.
The aircraft had taken off from Barcelona, Spain just hours before, bound for Dusseldorf, Germany.
READ MORE: Man forced to choke his own dog with his forearms during horrific 45-minute mauling
READ MORE: Major Madeleine McCann update as prime suspect Christian Brueckner may walk free in just days
All 150 of those on board lost their lives in the tragedy, including a group of 16 students and two teachers from a German high school and a 37-year-old mother from Manchester, along with her seven-month-old baby.
Other victims included a pair of acclaimed German opera singers and a member of an Argentine rock band.
Most of those killed originated from Germany and Spain, however the death toll included people from 17 different countries in total.
While relatives and close friends paid their respects at the site of the incident, hundreds gathered in the western German town of Haltern am See to remember the 18-member school group who lost their lives on the same day a decade ago.
Christian Krahl, principal of the Joseph Konig high school, remarked on the importance of remembering the tragedy.
'We want to be close to those who are infinitely sad to this day,' he told German news agency DPA.
The town's mayor, Andreas Stegemann, told the agency that the tragedy is a permanent part of the town's history.
Wreaths were laid at the town cemetery, where some of the students are buried alongside a memorial which resembles a schoolroom.
Elsewhere, in the French village of Le Vernet - which is located near the crash site - Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Germanwings parent Lufthansa, laid flowers for the victims.
Commemorations were also carried out at Barcelona airport and Dusseldorf airport. A book of condolences was made available at the latter to allow employees and travellers to write tributes.
When investigators revealed that the crash was caused by the actions of the flight's co-pilot, many of the victim's loved ones reacted with shock and anger.
It was later revealed that Lubitz had suffered from depression and sleeplessness in the months leading up to the incident, but was deemed fit to fly by his employer.
A five-meter "Solar Orb" was erected at the site of the crash in 2017. Made up of 149 gilded aluminium plates, it is meant to represent all those who died on board except the co-pilot.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
14 hours ago
- New York Post
Shipwreck mystery solved as lost vessel resurfaces 140 years after tragic sinking
This discovery made major waves. Researchers have discovered a vessel that sank over 140 years ago — closing the book on one of the UK's most enduring maritime mysteries. Footage of the long-lost wreckage is currently making waves online. The historic steamer, dubbed the SS Nantes, had sunk in 1888 after colliding with a German boat, resulting in the deaths of most of the crew, Jam Press reported. The freighter then lay undiscovered for nearly a century and a half until 2024, when diver and explorer Dominic Robinson identified the shipwreck by dinnerware he found at the wreck site. 5 'It's quite a sad story,' said Dominic Robinson (pictured), who helped identify the wreck. Jam Press 'Even though the wreck had been dived before, it was never identified and this small piece of broken plate allowed us to do exactly that,' the 50-year-old former army officer, who'd been diving for 35 years, told Jam Press. Meanwhile, maritime history expert Dr. Harry Bennett dubbed the recovery the 'underwater archaeological equivalent of a needle in a haystack,' the BBC reported. 'I think the local dive team are to be congratulated on a splendid piece of detective work which reveals this maritime disaster,' said the professor, who teaches at the University of Plymouth. 5 Footage of the sunken vessel, which had been lost to history for 140 years. Jam Press Built in 1874, the SS Nantes was a cargo ship operated by the Cunard Steamship Company. The 14-year-old vessel was traveling from Liverpool, UK, to Le Havre, France, with a load of coal in tow when it was struck by the German sailing vessel Theodor Ruger, which tore a 'big hole in its side,' Bennett recounted to CNN. 'For several hours, the crew tried to save their ship using all manner of materials to try and fill the hole, including mattresses,' he recalled. 'But eventually they lose that fight and the ship goes down very rapidly.' 5 The SS Nantes (pictured) had collided with a German sailing vessel. Jam Press/Rick Ayrton Bennett said that the SS Nantes 'drifted for several hours, before it finally made its way to the bottom, sadly, with many of its crewmen on board.' Their escape efforts were reportedly hindered by the fact that the lifeboats were damaged in the collision. 'There were some 23-odd fatalities,' Bennett told BBC. 'There were three survivors.' 5 Divers at the wreck of the SS Nantes, which was identified in part by the shard of a plate that bore the emblem of the Cunard Steamship Company. Jam Press/Rick Ayrton Meanwhile, corpses from the wreckage washed ashore in Cornwall, where locals were confronted by the horrific sight of bodies intermingled with pieces of the SS Nantes. Unfortunately, after plunging to the bottom of the ocean, the ship was 'essentially lost' as it was a time period with 'no satellite navigation,' per Dr. Bennett. 5 The plate with the stamp of the Cunard Steamship Company. Jam Press/Rick Ayrton It wasn't until 2024 that the local dive team identified the sunken vessel. Johnson had caught wind of the unidentified wreck from the UK Hydrographic Office and decided to investigate himself. Toward the end of a mostly fruitless dive, the wreck-plorer saw the broken plate, which provided a major clue as to the vessel's identity. 'I decided to bring it up to the surface [and] we found that [it] had the Cunard Steamship crest on it,' recalled Jonhson. 'It was then bingo, we've found it.' Researchers also identified the sunken ship by the build, technology on board, and dimensions of the vessel — which measured around 240 feet long. After examining the crews' footage and methodology, Dr. Bennett declared that 'beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, this is the SS Nantes.' While the sinking of the SS Nantes was an awful tragedy, Robinson hopes that the discovery at least provides a bit of closure to the heartwrenching saga. 'One of the things I like to think is by solving mysteries and telling those stories, I'm ensuring that those people aren't forgotten,' he said.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
African prisoners made sound recordings in German camps in WW1: this is what they had to say
During the first world war (1914-1918) thousands of African men enlisted to fight for France and Britain were captured and held as prisoners in Germany. Their stories and songs were recorded and archived by German linguists, who often didn't understand a thing they were saying. Now a recent book called Knowing by Ear listens to these recordings alongside written sources, photographs and artworks to reveal the lives and political views of these colonised Africans from present-day Senegal, Somalia, Togo and Congo. Anette Hoffmann is a historian whose research and curatorial work engages with historical sound archives. We asked her about her book. About 450 recordings with African speakers were made with linguists of the so-called Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission. Their project was opportunistic. They made use of the presence of prisoners of war to further their research. In many cases these researchers didn't understand what was being said. The recordings were archived as language samples, yet most were never used, translated, or even listened to for decades. The many wonderful translators I have worked with over the years are often the first listeners who actually understood what was being said by these men a century before. The European prisoners the linguists recorded were often asked to tell the same Bible story (the parable of the prodigal son). But because of language barriers, African prisoners were often simply asked to speak, tell a story or sing a song. We can hear some men repeating monotonous word lists or counting, but mostly they spoke of the war, of imprisonment and of the families they hadn't seen for years. Abdoulaye Niang from Senegal sings in Wolof. Courtesy Lautarchiv, Berlin275 KB (download) In the process we hear speakers offer commentary. Senegalese prisoner Abdoulaye Niang, for example, calls Europe's battlefields an abattoir for the soldiers from Africa. Others sang of the war of the whites, or speak of other forms of colonial exploitation. When I began working on colonial-era sound archives about 20 years ago, I was stunned by what I heard from African speakers, especially the critique and the alternative versions of colonial history. Often aired during times of duress, such accounts seldom surface in written sources. Joseph Ntwanumbi from South Africa speaks in isiXhosa. Courtesy Lautarchiv, Berlin673 KB (download) Clearly, many speakers felt safe to say things because they knew that researchers couldn't understand them. The words and songs have travelled decades through time yet still sound fresh and provocative. The book is arranged around the speakers. Many of them fought in the French army in Europe after being conscripted or recruited in former French colonies, like Abdoulaye Niang. Other African men got caught up in the war and were interned as civilian prisoners, like Mohamed Nur from Somalia, who had lived in Germany from 1911. Joseph Ntwanumbi from South Africa was a stoker on a ship that had docked in Hamburg soon after the war started. In chapter one Niang sings a song about the French army's recruitment campaign in Dakar and also informs the linguists that the inmates of the camp in Wünsdorf, near Berlin, do not wish to be deported to another camp. An archive search reveals he was later deported and also that Austrian anthropologists measured his body for racial studies. His recorded voice speaking in Wolof travelled back home in 2024, as a sound installation I created for the Théodore Monod African Art Museum in Dakar. Chapter two listens to Mohamed Nur from Somalia. In 1910 he went to Germany to work as a teacher to the children of performers in a so-called Völkerschau (an ethnic show; sometimes called a human zoo, where 'primitive' cultures were displayed). After refusing to perform on stage, he found himself stranded in Germany without a passport or money. He worked as a model for a German artist and later as a teacher of Somali at the University of Hamburg. Nur left a rich audio-visual trace in Germany, which speaks of the exploitation of men of colour in German academia as well as by artists. One of his songs comments on the poor treatment of travellers and gives a plea for more hospitality to strangers. Stephan Bischoff, who grew up in a German mission station in Togo and was working in a shoe shop in Berlin when the war began, appears in the third chapter. His recordings criticise the practices of the Christian colonial evangelising mission. He recalls the destruction of an indigenous shrine in Ghana by German military in 1913. Also in chapter three is Albert Kudjabo, who fought in the Belgian army before he was imprisoned in Germany. He mainly recorded drum language, a drummed code based on a tonal language from the Democratic Republic of Congo that German linguists were keen to study. He speaks of the massive socio-cultural changes that mining brought to his home region, which may have caused him to migrate. Together these songs, stories and accounts speak of a practice of extracting knowledge in prisoner of war camps. But they offer insights and commentary far beyond the 'example sentences' that the recordings were meant to be. As sources of colonial history, the majority of the collections in European sound archives are still untapped, despite the growing scholarly and artistic interest in them in the last decade. This interest is led by decolonial approaches to archives and knowledge production. Sound collections diversify what's available as historical texts, they increase the variety of languages and genres that speak of the histories of colonisation. They present alternative accounts and interpretations of history to offer a more balanced view of the past. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Anette Hoffmann, University of Cologne Read more: Rashid Lombard: the photographer who documented both resistance and celebration in South Africa 3 things Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o taught me: language matters, stories are universal, Africa can thrive Mbare Art Space: a colonial beer hall in Zimbabwe has become a vibrant arts centre Anette Hoffmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
54 migrants rescued from oil platform, where one woman gave birth
Over 50 migrants were headed to the Italian island of Lampedusa Sunday after a charity ship rescued them from an abandoned oil platform in the Mediterranean, where one woman gave birth, according to a rescue group. The vessel Astral, operated by the Spain-based NGO Open Arms, rescued the 54 people overnight, the group said in a statement. The migrants had been trapped on the oil platform for three days after their rubber boat shipwrecked following their departure from Libya on Tuesday, Open Arms said. On Friday, one of the migrants gave birth to a boy, while another woman had given birth days before. Two other young children were among the group, Open Arms said. The group released images on social media, showing rescuers helping transfer the migrants from the oil platform to the Astral. Later Sunday, the charity said that, following the rescue of those on the oil platform, the Astral came upon another 109 people, including four people in the water. That group, which included 10 children, had also departed from Libya, it said. Open Arms said they provided life jackets to the migrants before they were rescued by another charity ship, the Louise Michel, which is sponsored by street artist Banksy. The Louise Michel, a former French navy vessel, was transporting the migrants from Lampedusa to a safe port in Sicily, Open Arms said. The Italian island has been the sight of migrant tragedies before. In December, more than 40 migrants were feared dead off Lampedusa after a lone 11-year-old survivor said the boat she was on capsized, according to the rescue group Compass Collective. It is not unusual for migrants crossing the Mediterranean on leaky and overcrowded boats to seek refuge on offshore oil platforms. As of June 1, some 23,000 migrants had reached Italy by sea this year, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Earlier this year, Spanish coastguards rescued a baby that was born on an inflatable vessel carrying migrants to the Canary Islands. The newborn was recovered safely along with their mother on Monday, the coastguard service said in a message on social media. Kristi Noem says "we are not going to let a repeat of 2020 happen" amid L.A. crackdown Magic in the dark: The fantastical worlds of Lightwire Theater Carlos Alcaraz beats Jannik Sinner in epic comeback to win French Open
