tweets, external: Germanwings has offered to fly the students' family members to France. So far no-one has taken them up on the offer

Germanwings employees console each other outside Cologne Bonn Airport on Wednesday as they hold a minute's silence.

Image source, Reuters

Germanwings has said maintenance work had been carried out on a flap covering the landing gear on the plane that crashed, but that it was a noise issue rather than a safety issue. The plane was cleared to fly 24 hours before take off.

The captain had been with Germanwings and parent company Lufthansa for more than 10 years and had clocked up 6,000 flying hours on the Airbus 320.

The Germanwings flight number 4U 9525 has now been retired, reports the BBC's Imelda Flattery.

A similar move was made by Malaysia Airlines when flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine.

Condolence messages for the victims of the plane crash are fixed on a pole on Wednesday in the departure area of the airport in Duesseldorf, western Germany.

Image source, AFP

A Swedish soccer team would have been aboard the ill-fated Germanwings flight that had they not changed their minds at the last minute, Yahoo News reports, external.

Low-cost airlines like Germanwings are no less safe than established airlines, The Daily Telegraph reports, external, citing industry figures from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

It says that IATA figures show show that location is the main factor in aviation safety.

Flags flutter at half-mast on top of the Reichstag building, the seat of the German lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, in Berlin on Wednesday.

Image source, Reuters

Part of the vertical stabilizer of the Germanwings Airbus A320 could be seen on Wednesday at the crash site in the French Alps.

Image source, AFP

Mr Wessel said there had been two Germanwings flights leaving Barcelona at a similar time which gave them hope the pupils may not have been on the plane that crashed, but later in the day there came "sad certainty" that they had indeed been on board.

"Our condolences and sympathy goes to the parents who have lost their beloved sons and daughters," he said.

Ulrich Wessel, principal of Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium, told a press conference that last Tuesday the school "saw off 16 cheerful young people" and teachers on an exchange trip, similar visits having taken place for "a number of years".

"This is a tragedy that makes you speechless," he said.

More from Philip Hammond on the number of Britons thought to be involved in the crash.

"We currently believe that three British people have been killed in this tragedy, but we cannot rule out the possibility that there are further British people involved.

"The level of information on the flight manifest doesn't allow us to rule out that possibility until we've completed some further checks.

"We are in contact with the families of those known to have been killed."

Imelda Flattery

@Imeldaflattery tweets, external: Minute silence at Dusseldorf Airport. The moment 24 hours ago the German wings plane crashed.

"This constitutes a very dreadful tragedy," Sylvia Loehrmann, education minister of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, tells a press conference.

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond says at least three Britons are believed to have been killed in the Germanwings plane crash.

French interior ministry spokesman Paul-Henry Brandet says overnight rain and snow in the crash zone has made the rocky ravine of the crash site more slippery, increasing the difficulty of reaching the steep and remote area, AP reports.

Lufthansa and Germanwings flags are flying at half mast at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Schkeuditz, Germany, as the companies hold a minute's silence.

Image source, EPA

Key to the investigation is what happened between 10:30 and 10:31 on Tuesday morning said French government minister Segolene Royal, AP reports. Controllers were unable to make contract with the plane after that time.

There were at least three Kazakh nationals on board the plane, Le Figaro reports. The Kazakh foreign affairs minister announced that Erbol and Adil Imankoulov, born in 1965 and 1989 respectively, and Aijan Isengalieva, born in 1966, were among the victims.

Rescue helicopters are seen here flying over Seyne-les-Alpes on the way to the site where the Germanwings flight 4U 9525 crashed, as work to recover the bodies of victims resumes.

Image source, EPA