German school vows it will never forget its students killed in Germanwings crash 10 years ago

Record ID: 1985589

  • Title: German school vows it will never forget its students killed in Germanwings crash 10 years ago
  • Date: 24th March 2025
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (German) HEADMASTER, CHRISTIAN KRAHL, SAYING: “We'll never get rid of it completely. And we don't want to. We keep the memory alive. The teachers go to the memorial with the pupils who are new to the school, talk about it, discuss it so that everyone knows what it's about, why it's so important for us. Apart from that, it doesn't necessarily play a major role i
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: French Alps German school Germanwings anniversary crash plane teenagers victims
  • Location: HALTERN, GERMANY
  • City: HALTERN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Air Accidents,Disaster/Accidents,Europe
  • Reuters ID: LVA005117424032025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:For FILE, please see 0889-FRANCE-CRASH/GERMANWINGS-ANNIVERSARY-FILE
    Students and staff at a German high school marked the tenth anniversary on Monday (March 24) of the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps which killed 150 people aboard, including 16 teenagers and two teachers from Haltern.
    A sombre, rainy outdoor ceremony was held in front of a memorial plaque listing the victims’ names from the local Joseph-Koenig Gymnasium high school whose headmaster said the school would never be able to get rid of the “atrocity” completely.
    German prosecutors in 2017 decided that nobody other than pilot Andreas Lubitz could be held accountable for the crash.
    Lubitz deliberately flew the Germanwings A320 jet into a French mountainside on March 24, 2015, on a flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.
    Prosecutors have said Lubitz was suffering from a suspected "psychotic depressive episode" that started in December 2014, months before the fatal crash, but that he had concealed his illness from his employer, part of the Lufthansa group.
    They had been looking into whether anyone still alive could also be held accountable for the crash, but the spokesman said investigations had not shown cause for fault, whether on the part of doctors, Lufthansa, Germanwings, or the German aviation authority.
    (Production: Stephane Nitschke, Erol Dogrudogan, Michele Sani)
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