Three Americans were among the victims of the Germanwings air crash over the French Alps, the US State Department confirmed on Wednesday.
Two of them were named as Yvonne Selke and her daughter Emily, from Nokesville, Virginia. The State Department said it was not releasing the third victim’s name yet “out of respect for the family”.
Raymond Selke, the husband of Yvonne and father of Emily, paid tribute to his loved ones, calling the two “wonderful to a fault”.
Speaking from the family home in Nokesville, about an hour south-west of Washington DC, Selke said Yvonne and Emily had been on vacation in Spain when they boarded the flight to Germany that went down on Tuesday with no survivors. The plane, bound for Düsseldorf, took off from Barcelona and crashed into a mountain in the French Alps.
“They loved traveling, and they loved to be in each other’s company. They were just traveling out there together,” Selke said.
Yvonne Selke, 58, was an employee of contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and Emily Selke, 22, was a graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Emily had a passion for music, and her ambition was to “manage large shows, music shows in the entertainment industry”, Selke said.
Asked if his wife had any particular passions, he said: “Life.”
Emily had one sibling, an older brother Trevor. “He is doing OK,” Selke said of his son.
In an earlier statement, Selke had said: “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.” He asked people to dedicate their prayers to his lost loved ones.
Selke told the Guardian that he had been offered passage to the crash site by Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, but at this time, he said, he preferred not to travel and to wait in hope that his wife and daughter’s remains could be repatriated.
“My wife and daughter were wonderful people. Generous, kind, wonderful to a fault,” he said. They were traveling for pleasure in the region when they took the flight bound for Germany, he said.
Yvonne Selke worked at the Pentagon’s satellite mapping branch, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She was described as a highly regarded staff member, according to a local news report.
Emily graduated from Drexel in 2013, and tributes to her from sorority sisters at the university were being posted on Facebook.
One statement read: “She embodied the spirit of Gamma Sigma Sigma. As a person and friend, Emily always put others before herself and cared deeply for all those in her life.
“Emily will be greatly missed by her fellow sisters of Zeta. Please keep Emily, her mother and their family in your thoughts and prayers during this heartbreaking time.”
Haley Holmes, who works in New York but has declined to respond to media requests to comment, posted simply: “My beautiful Em!” on the sorority page.
Earlier on Wednesday, Thomas Winkelmann, the managing director of Germanwings, said that, according to its most up-to-date information, 72 Germans, 35 Spanish citizens and two US citizens were on board the flight – as well as two from Australia, Argentina, Iran and Venezuela, and one from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel.
Winkelmann said the list was not yet final because the company was still trying to contact relatives of 27 victims.
He said in some cases the victims’ nationality was not entirely clear, in part because of dual citizenship.
Spain’s government said it had identified 49 Spanish victims and the country’s media have been releasing their names, while Britain said it believed there were at least three Britons on board.
Germanwings flight 4U9525 was travelling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf when it crashed around 11am on Tuesday in the French Alps.
It is not yet clear what caused the crash, though the black box containing cockpit voice recordings has been found. Search and recovery operations are under way, but it could take a week to collect the victims’ remains.
Barack Obama called the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy on Tuesday to express his condolences, and those of the American people, to Germany, Spain and the families of the victims.
He offered them both full assistance from American officials as needed to respond to the crash, the White House said.
