16 German school pupils from the same class all die on board doomed Germanwings flight

Sixteen children and two teachers from the same school were among the 150 people believed to have perished on the Germanwings flight. The youngsters were returning from a nine-day exchange trip in Barcelona when the plane was lost in a remote region of the French Alps.
Last night it emerged the school children almost escaped death because one 15-year-old girl had left her passport behind.

But in a tragic twist, her host family offered to race the girl and all her travel documents to the airport in Barcelona directly, allowing them all to get on the flight in time.
The pupils were from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium school in Western Germany, an English-speaking grammar.
At Dusseldorf Airport yesterday parents who had expected to welcome their children home were in tears as news of the horrifying crash began to break.
The distressed families were ushered into private rooms at the airport by the police and representatives of Germanwings, where they were offered counselling.