Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, himself a pilot, has said that it is "inexplicable for us, how an airplane in good mechanical condition, with two experienced, Lufthansa-trained pilots, could encounter such a tragedy from cruising altitude".

A man passes by a police officer to deliver flowers to the gymnasium set up as a makeshift chapel to welcome families of the victims in Seyne-les-Alpes, south-eastern France, which is near the crash site.

Image source, EPA

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin tells the BBC that more than 14 magistrates from the region and more than 200 police officers are working on the case. Mr Robin, who has been working with Germany and Spain to formally request information about the flight, said it is hoped that information from the aircraft's black box voice recorder will be available later on Wednesday.

"The black box which has been found, is currently at the accident investigation bureau (BEA) in Paris and is being examined," he said. "We hope perhaps to have some results by the end of the day. As you know it is a complicated process to retrieve the recordings from these devices and expert analysis will take place but all this takes time."

Mr Winkelmann said there were 72 Germans and 35 Spaniards on board the flight. Spain's government earlier said that 49 Spanish victims had been identified.

Three generations of one family - a schoolgirl, her mother and grandmother - were on the Germanwings plane that crashed, officials from a town outside Barcelona say. A statement from Sant Cugat del Valles town hall did not provide their names, AP reports, but the girl was aged between 10 and 11.

Image source, AP

It is now known that the victims came from all over the world. While the majority were from Spain and Germany, citizens of the UK, Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Denmark, the Netherlands, the USA and Belgium are also thought to be on board.

Thomas Winkelmann, chief executive of Germanwings, has said the nationalities of all of the passengers is not yet known and that the company is still trying to contact relatives of 27 victims.

Employees and trustees of the opera house Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, where two of the victims had recently performed, observe a minute's silence in memory of those killed in the crash.

Image source, Getty Images

Pupils at the Giola secondary school in the Catalan village of Llinars del Valles have held a 15-minute ceremony of remembrance for the 16 foreign exchange students they hosted over the past week.

During the ceremony, they listened to a German song their friends had played them and a Catalan poem was read out.

BBC correspondent Tom Burridge said villagers there "spoke of a profound sense of grief".

Germany's top security official says there is no evidence at this stage that foul play was involved in the plane crash. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in Berlin that "according to the latest information there is no hard evidence that the crash was intentionally brought about by third parties".

Richard Granville in Alicante emails: My children also travel on school exchanges and I cry true tears of emotion for the pain which the families of the schoolchildren must be feeling, indeed for all those related, and friends of anyone in the plane. There are no words... just time to gently soften the raw suffering and desperation as reality of lost lives sinks home.

Germanwings: Lufthansa's budget hope - BBC News website report

The Lufthansa press office says that staffing issues have resulted in 11 aircraft being borrowed by Germanwings from other airlines, including Lufthansa itself, Air Berlin and Tui. As for the rest of the Germanwings fleet - comprising 78 planes, including 55 Airbuses - the press office could not say exactly how many would be in the air on Wednesday.

Following the news that some Germanwings crew are "unfit for service" on Wednesday, a spokesman in the Lufthansa press office told the BBC staff can declare themselves unfit to fly and do not have to specify a reason.

In this case Lufthansa says it is mainly cabin crew who have decided not to work, not pilots, and they believe it is because of emotional stress. They are not aware of anyone refusing to fly on safety grounds.

Pictures of the plane's cockpit voice recorder have been released by the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA), the French civil aviation safety investigation authority. Despite the damage, officials examining the black box in Paris hope to retrieve data from it.

Image source, BEA

French Red Cross staff wait at the convention centre in Digne-les-Bains, near the site where Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed on Tuesday.

Image source, AFP

BBC News website coverage: At least three Britons among the dead.

BBC picture gallery: The search resumes

Joshua Friend is a young singer from Reading, England, who had spent time training in Germany with opera singer Oleg Bryjak, a passenger on board the plane.

He told the BBC: "He was so kind to me. It's really sad to have lost someone so decent. He didn't have to help me at all. He was so generous with his time and knowledge."

One Germanwings flight has been cancelled on Wednesday, the airline has said in a statement. Some crew members are "unfit for service" because of "emotional distress", the statement added.

Counsellors are on hand to support bereaved students in Haltern, western Germany.

Image source, AP