Germanwings crash: Germany, France mark 10th anniversary

French, German and Spanish officials on Monday laid wreaths at the site of a 2015 airline crash that shocked Europe. 

The families and friends of victims observed a minute of silence at 10:41 a.m. (0941 GMT), exactly 10 years after Germanwings flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany, crashed into a mountainside in the French alps, killing all 144 passengers and six crew members onboard.

In total, people from 20 different countries were killed in the incident, although most were from Germany (72) and Spain (50). 

Germanwings was a low-cost subsidiary of Lufthansa, whose CEO Carsten Spohr was on hand in the French mountain town of Le Vernet on Monday. Spohr said the tragedy of the incident still haunts the company.

Pilot crashed the jet on purpose 

The shock of the news of a crash was compounded by the horror of the fact that investigators surmised that the co-pilot, who suffered from depression, had intentionally crashed the plane into a mountainside after the pilot left to cockpit to go to the bathroom.

When the pilot returned, he found that the co-pilot had locked him out of the cockpit and had initiated an automated descent of the Airbus A320.

Banging could be heard on cockpit voice recordings as the pilot desperately attempted to break into the cockpit. The co-pilot never answered requests from air-traffic controllers, with only his breathing being heard.

Pain and questions 10 years on

Ceremonies were also held in Barcelona and Dusseldorf, as well as in the western German city of Haltern am See, home to 16 exchange students and two teachers who were killed on their flight home from Spain.

Haltern Mayor Andreas Stegemann told Germany's DPA news agency, "This state of shock, the deeply felt sympathy of all the residents for the families and the question of why this happened are still with us today. The Germanwings crash is a permanent part of our town's history."

Bertrand Bartolini, who was mayor of Le Vernet at the time of the crash, said that when he arrived at the site to access the situation he saw "a place of absolute horror," adding, "I saw things there that I will never be able to talk about."

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Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez