Germanwings has rounded up to 72 the number of German nationals who died in yesterday's Alpine plane crash.
Employees of Lufthansa and its Germanwings subsidiary held a minute's silence in memory of the six crew and 144 passengers who died en route yesterday from Barcelona to Düsseldorf.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr described the minute's silence at 10.53, the last moment of contact with flight 9525 a day earlier as a "very emotional moment".
Germanwings has published a preliminary passenger list containing names of 72 German nationals and 35 Spanish nationals. Two victims each were from the US, Australia, Iran, Venezuela and Argentina. One victim each came from the UK, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel.
Germanwings boss Thomas Winkelmann said the list was not yet complete and would be updated as new information became available.
He said he still had no information about the cause of the crash but would fly with Lufthansa chief Carsten Spohr to Barcelona to meet families of victims.
Later they will fly on to France to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel at the crash site. With flags at half mast on all official buildings in Berlin, the German leader left the capital on the government jet this morning for France, where she will inspect the scene this afternoon with French and German leaders.
As French investigators took up again their hunt for the cause of the crash, Lufthansa insisted that minor problems with the Germanwings plane had been solved before it carried out its routine Düsseldorf-Barcelona return run on Tuesday.
Several Germanwings crews refused to fly on Tuesday out of reported concern over plane safety. Mr Spohr of Lufthansa and Germanwings boss Thomas Winkelmann expressed understanding but put their reluctance to work down to personal reasons and not safety concerns.
“One must not forget: many of our Germanwings crews would have known crew members who were onboard the crashed plane,” said Mr Spohr. “It is now more important to ensure psychological assistance if needed. And we will get back to a full flight operation as soon as possible then. But for me, this is rather secondary now.”
In total seven Germanwings flights have been cancelled since Tuesday's crash, including today's morning flight from Düsseldorf to Barcelona. Competitors Air Berlin and Tuifly agreed to carry stranded passengers in the Catalonian capital.
Lufthansa’s pilot union Cockpit announced it would postpone its long-running industrial action with the carrier while Germanwings is suspending all advertising.
German media has been dominated by the crash since yesterday lunchtime. The best-selling Bild tabloid devoted six pages to worst tragedy of modern German aviation history, including an all-black last page in memory of the victims.
It printed a photo of the 10th year Spanish class killed in the crash with the student's faces pixilated. Ivonne Bobb told the newspaper that her niece Janina was supposed to be on the exchange.
“But she cancelled and didn’t go in the end, perhaps it was intuiton,” she said.
With few facts, three theories are circulating in the German media: a sudden loss of cabin pressure, cabin computer malfunction or terrorist attack. The last has been ruled out by German authorities, the second as possible but less probable than the first.
"The rapid drop in altitude suggests a loss in cabin pressure where the pilots lost consciousness," said aviation analyst Ralf Benko on NTV news channel. "If the cabin pressure dropped suddenly the pilots would have only 10 or 15 seconds to react and get an airmask on. If they passed out it would explain why there as no emergency signal before the crash."
