Germanwings Flight 9525 Victims Update: 61 Confirmed By Family, Spanish Outlet Reports

Some of the 150 victims who died in the Germanwings Flight 9525 crash on Tuesday have been preliminarily identified, with the large majority being either Spanish or German. The plane had just reached its cruising altitude on a flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany when it began a steady descent and eventually crashed into a mountainside in the French Alps.

As of 11:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, at least 61 individuals have been confirmed by relatives to have been on the doomed flight, according to the Madrid news outlet ABC, which reported from the Barcelona-El Prat Airport, where Flight 9525 took off. Those individuals include 47 Spaniards, two Argentines, seven Germans and one American, Mexican, Belgian, Moroccan and Colombian. Only a handful of the names of victims have been positively identified and the rest await confirmation, but the nationalities of the majority have been tentatively identified.

Germans on board: At least 67 of the passengers were German, and while it has yet to be confirmed, authorities believe 16 of the German passengers were teenaged students returning from a weeklong exchange program in Catalonia, Spain. Their two instructors were also on board. German opera singers Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner were on board, along with Radner’s husband and infant child. Radner and Bryjak were returning from a production of “Seigfried” at the Gran Tetre del Liceu in Barcelona.

Spaniards on board: Authorities said 45 of the victims had Spanish surnames, although some may not be Spanish citizens. Many of those suspected Spanish victims were Catalan businessmen and women who were traveling to Germany for a food service conference. Only a few have been tentatively identified, including Josep Sabaté Casellas, who was identified by local media as a victim, according to Buzzfeed. Buzzfeed also identified one of the victims as the wife of the chief of staff to Oriol Junqueras, the president of the Republican Left of Catalonia party.

Other suspected to be on board: An Australian mother and her adult son were on the flight, according to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Spain’s King Felipe VI said that there were Turkish nationals on the flight, but the Turkish Foreign Ministry said there was only one German individual of Turkish descent on board. According to CNN, the Colombian Foreign Ministry actually identified two Colombian nationals on board: Maria del Pilar Tejada and Luis Eduardo Medrano. The Dutch Foreign Ministry also confirmed that one citizen was on board.