Alps air disaster: Bodies of German schoolchildren return home

The bodies of some the school children victims of the Germanwings plane crash have been returned home to Germany and are on the way back to their home town.

After a plane carrying the first bodies repatriated from the disaster landed earlier today, a hearse convoy carrying German high school students left Duesseldorf airport and headed towards their hometown of Haltern.

An investigation found that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane after suffering from severe depression.

ITV News Correspondent Paul Davies reports:

The families viewed the coffins inside an airport hanger before the fleet of black and white hearses set off in a slow procession towards Haltern.

The convoy is to pass by the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium, the high school the teens attended.

Hearses carrying coffins with remains of victims of the Germanwings plane disaster. Credit: Reuters

Principal of the school, Ulrich Wessel said:

Two of the teachers who had accompanied the students on a school exchange trip to Spain were also killed in the crash.

While they waited for arrival of the convoy, students in Haltern laid white roses for their dead friends on the pavement next to their school.

They also lit white candles on the school yard, where 18 trees were recently planted as a memorial to the deceased.

Mr Wessel said psychologists had talked to the students earlier this week and that all students would be allowed to attend their schoolmates' funerals.

The first burials will be held Friday, the last ones at the end of the month. One teenager will not be buried in Haltern.

eople throw flowers on hearses carrying the coffins

A spokeswoman for Germanwings said the repatriation of the bodies of the other victims to their home countries had also begun and would likely be finished by the end of June.

Lufthansa spokesman Andreas Bartels said, in addition to individual returns, a special flight next Monday would return remains of the Spanish victims to Barcelona from Marseille.

In addition to the 72 German victims, 47 Spaniards, another four people who were dual citizens with a Spanish passport, and citizens of over a dozen other countries were killed in the crash.