Germany Mourns Concorde Victims

July 26 -- Germany is mourning the victims of the Air France Concorde disaster today.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other top figures attended a memorial service in the dark-walled chapel of the Christian pavilion of the EXPO2000 in Hanover.

Flags across Germany were lowered to half-staff, and some television announcers on the morning newscasts wore black.

Queen Elizabeth and Tony Blair have sent messages of condolence to Schroeder, who has organized a crisis staff to help deal with the tragedy.

‘Silent Cries of the Dead’

Air France Flight AF4590, carrying 100 passengers and a crew of nine, slammed into a hotel just outside Paris and exploded shortly after takeoff, killing 113 — including four on the ground. Ninety-six of the passengers were Germans, two were Danes, one Austrian and one American. The Germans were supposed to take a luxury cruise ship from New York to South America. The memorial service, led by a Protestant and Roman Catholic Bishop, was carried live on Germany’s national television network. The two religious leaders spoke of “the silent cries of the dead.”

Meanwhile, relatives of the 96 dead Germans began arriving in Paris in an attempt to begin the long, painful process of closure.

The largest contingent on board came from the Dusseldorf area, where they had boarded an Air France plane to Paris to join the fatal Concorde flight.

Thirty-three others were scheduled to join the charter flight, were spared when overbooking led them to seats on the regular Concorde to New York, which departed shortly before the doomed flight.

That plane landed safely in New York.

Dream Turns Into Nightmare

But for those waiting in New York, the dream of the “dream cruise” has turned into a nightmare, with empty seats threatening to haunt their trip.

But the Peter Deilmann River & Ocean Cruises, which organized the trip, says it will go on.

“It makes no sense to leave the ship in port,” said a clearly shocked Peter Deilmann, sole owner of the hard-hit cruise line. Deilmann spoke to reporters in Neustadt, on the Baltic coast an hour from Hamburg.