Germanwings Passenger List: Frustration Brews As People Await Names Of Crash Victims

Anger amid frustration brewed on social media Wednesday as the world awaited the names of the 150 people aboard Germanwings Flight 9525, which crashed in the French Alps Tuesday. Germanwings released an updated breakdown of the victims’ nationalities, but have yet to release their names and ages. Thomas Winkelmann, the airline’s CEO, said the company is attempting to reach relatives of 27 victims before publishing a final list, the Associated Press reported.

Flags flew at half-mast in Germany after it lost 72 citizens, marking the largest loss of life in a single incident for the country in 15 years, according to Bloomberg Business. In Spain, a moment of silence will be observed Wednesday in memory of the 45 Spanish nationals killed in the crash, AP reported.

Also Wednesday, families of the victims and international leaders traveled to the crash site where the plane plunged into the Alps, about 100 miles north of Nice. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was on her way there, with many of the victims having lived in North Rhine-Westphalia, a state in northwestern Germany, as Bloomberg reported.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere ordered flags to fly at half-mast on government buildings for the next three days in the wake of the crash. Among the German victims were 16 high-school students and two teachers, who had been on a weeklong exchange program in Spain. Students and teachers returned to school Wednesday, when they grieved together in the gymnasium, AP reported.

“Nothing will be the way it was at our school anymore,” Ulrich Wessel, principal of the Joseph Koenig High School in North Rhine-Westphalia, told AP. “It is a tragedy that makes one speechless, and we will have to learn to deal with it.”

Spain also declared three days of mourning, Bloomberg reported. Germanwings' CEO said Wednesday 35 Spanish citizens were aboard Flight 9525, but Spain’s government said there were 49 Spanish victims, AP said.

Lufthansa, the German airline company that operates Germanwings, held a companywide minute of silence at 10:53 a.m. local time to mark the moment when contact was lost with Flight 9525. Germanwings canceled several flights Tuesday, but returned to near-normal operations Wednesday, after losing six employees in the crash, according to Bloomberg.

Other nations including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Iran, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Turkey, the U.K. and Venezuela also had citizens who perished in the plane crash.