The Concorde crash that claimed the lives of 96 Germans en route to a dream cruise in the Caribbean left the nation in shock today, and nowhere more so than the city of Monchengladbach, which was home to 13 of the victims.
"He and his wife are dead," said police spokesman Mr Michael Muhlenbroich as he paged through the morning newspaper and the pictures of some of the locals who died in yesterday's Paris inferno.
"He and his wife are dead," he repeated, pointing at another photo. "He and his wife are dead. It's terrible."
The crash outside Paris of the New York-bound supersonic jet, which had been chartered by a German cruise ship company, dominated all the German media.
In Monchengladbach, a quiet community of 270,000 in Germany's industrial heartland, residents knew who among their town's leading lights had booked the expensive flight and cruise.
These people are the upperclass people of Monchengladbach," Mr Muhlenbroich said. They're known to everybody in town."
According to the local Rheinische Post, the couples were long-time friends and had travelled together before, booking through a local travel agent. This time, however, the group split up.
Some 13 of them took the Concorde charter to New York - for a large surcharge - where they were to board the luxury liner MS Deutschland to start a 16-day cruise. Another three couples and the travel agent booked cheaper regular flights - not learning until they reached New York about the fate of the rest of their group.
Among the victims identified by the newspaper were Mr Kurt Kahle (51), the head of a private business school, his 37-year-old wife and their eight-year-old child; Mr Harald Ruch (45), owner of a building cleaning company and security service, and his 46-year-old wife; and Mr Werner Tellmann (69), a furniture-store owner, and his wife Margarete (66).
"I myself bought furniture from him," Muhlenbroich said.