The pastor of the Lutheran church in Montabaur, the home town of the Andreas Lubitz, who is believed to have deliberately flown Germanwings Flight 9525 into the ground in the French Alps, has said that the church is standing by the pilot's family.
Rev Michael Dietrich told Associated Press: "For us, it makes it particularly difficult that the only victim from Montabaur is suspected to have caused this tragedy, this crash – although this has not been finally confirmed, but a lot is indicating that – and we have to face this."
He continued: "The co-pilot, the family belong to our community, and we stand by this, and we embrace them and will not hide this, and want to support the family in particular.
"From what I've heard, there were no obvious signs that there is anything in the background that could lead to this," he added.
A French official who spoke to Lubitz's father said that he was "devastated, completely shattered" by his son's act.
"He is carrying on his back the entire weight of the drama. He is a man whose life has broken down," said Bernard Bartolini, the mayor of Prads-Haute-Bléone, a small town near the site of the crash, told the BFM news channel.
Bartolini said he met the parents when they visited the crash site and attended a memorial ceremony nearby on Thursday.
"He [the father] is a man whose life is in ruins," he said. "I felt incredibly sorry for him as he expressed all his emotion, he expressed his emotion because he has lost a loved one, but also because his son is perhaps the [cause] of all this tragedy."
Including Lubitz, 150 people died aboard the Germanwings plane, including German schoolchildren on their way back from an exchange visit in Spain. Lubitz locked the cockpit door while the captain was visiting the lavatory and sent the plane into a crash dive.
More details have emerged about Lubitz's mental and physical state before he crashed the plane, including the fact that he had been signed off work but tore up the sick notes. However, a complete picture of his state of mind has not yet emerged.
