Ann-Kristin Gütz could have been passenger 151 on doomed flight 9525.
Ms Gütz (21) was on a city break with her boyfriend in Barcelona and had planned to take the Tuesday morning Germanwings flight back to Düsseldorf. But they changed their mind at the last minute, a decision that saved their lives.
“We had planned to take the . . . flight,” she said, “but then decided against it because we wanted to stay another day in Barcelona. It’s an unbelievable feeling to know now that I could have been on the plane.”
Throughout Tuesday, Ms Gütz kept her employer, Radio Neandertal in North Rhine-Westphalia, updated on her circumstances. But not all her friends were listening and some didn’t know she had changed her travel plans.
A friend who used to work at Düsseldorf airport received a call from her former boss, asking which plane Ann-Kristin was planning to take home.
“When she said ‘Germanwings’, he went very quiet and said it had just crashed,” said Ms Gütz.
She spent a few surreal hours at the airport, dazed by her chance decision and surrounded by relatives of passengers unable to process what they were hearing.
“The mood was grim, nobody was saying anything or laughing, nobody knew what was going to happen,” she said. “Everyone at the airport was afraid and unsure, completely different from watching it on the television from Germany.”
With her boyfriend, Ms Gütz flew home with Lufthansa on Tuesday evening. She said she would be wary of flying with its Germanwings subsidiary. Despite her own shock, she says the attention and sympathy belongs with the victims and their families.
“This is a huge catastrophe. I slept very little last night. It just shows you how short life can be.”
