Three Americans were onboard the Germanwings plane that crashed into the French Alps on Tuesday. U.S. officials reported the identities of only two of the Americans. The third American’s identity has not been revealed out of respect for the family.
Yvonne and Emily Selke from Nokesville, Virginia were mother and daughter. Yvonne Selke was a U.S. contractor that worked for Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., a consulting firm located in Washington D.C. Her daughter Emily had graduated from Drexel University in 2013 and majored in music industry.
Family members expressed their sorrow over the loss of the two women. “Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke. Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers,” said the family.
About half of the passengers on board were German and about a quarter were Spanish. The flight passengers included two babies as well as 16 high school students from Germany. World leaders gave their condolences to the families of the victims on Tuesday, and Spanish government buildings as well as the Lufthansa airline had a minute of silence in honor of the victims of the crash on Wednesday.
The plane crash occurred in a mountainous region and not much has been discovered since investigation started. One of the black boxes, which contained audio files, was recovered yesterday. Unfortunately, it was heavily damaged and investigators have yet to retrieve the audio files from the device. The second black box was found on Wednesday, but was missing its memory card. It is unclear why the plane had descended to such low heights before the crash. French air traffic controllers stated that the plane’s cockpit communicated very little throughout the flight, which was very unusual they said. Currently, no theory is disregarded.
