A U.S. contractor and her adult daughter were identified Wednesday as two Americans killed aboard the Germanwings plane that plunged into the French Alps mountainside, while the State Department confirmed that a third American was also killed.
Yvonne Selke and daughter, Emily, of Nokesville, Virginia, were the Americans on doomed Flight 4U9525, NBC News has confirmed. The plane crashed Tuesday en route from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany, killing all 150 passengers and crew, officials said. Investigators found one black box and the frame of another black boxfrom the Airbus A320, which was pulverized upon impact in a remote area of the Alps.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not identify the third American.
The Selke family released a statement about the tragic loss of the mother and daughter.
“Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke,” the family said. “Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers.”
Yvonne Selke worked as a contractor for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Washington, D.C., for nearly 23 years, the company said.
She “was a wonderful co-worker and a dedicated employee who spent her career with the firm supporting the mission of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency,” the Pentagon’s satellite mapping office, the company said.
On Facebook, Drexel University’s Gamma Sigma Sigma sorority posted a tribute to Emily Selke, a 2013 graduate and a former vice president of the service sorority’s Zeta chapter.
“She embodied the spirit of Gamma Sigma Sigma,” the post said. “As a person and friend, Emily always put others before herself and cared deeply for all those in her life. Emily will be greatly missed by her fellow sisters of Zeta. Please keep Emily, her mother and their family in your thoughts and prayers during this heartbreaking time.”
Emily Selke was a music industry major at Drexel’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends,” the school said in a statement.
Black box audio recovered
Audio from one of the crashed Germanwings plane’s black boxes has been recovered, investigators said Wednesday, warning that it could take days or weeks for the material to be fully analyzed. Remy Jouty, director of France’s aviation investigation agency, told reporters that it was too soon to draw any conclusions from the recording.
“We just succeeded in getting an audio file which contains usable sounds and voices,” he said. “We hope to have a first rough idea in a matter of days and having a full understanding … will take weeks and even months.”
French officials said a black box recovered from the ill-fated plane — Flight 4U9525’s cockpit voice recorder — was damaged but could still shed light on what prompted the Airbus A320 to descend rapidly and crash into the Alps, killing all 150 people aboard. Some Germanwings crew members have refused to fly following the unexplained accident.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve acknowledged that all possible explanations for the crash are being considered, but told RTL radio that terrorist action is not the most likely theory.
Officials confirmed to NBC News that the French Air Force had scrambled a Mirage fighter jet to the area when the Germanwings flight lost radar contact on Tuesday, but the jet arrived too late and didn’t spot the wreckage.
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the crash site on Wednesday, where recovery efforts have been underway since daybreak over the scattered debris field.
“The scene is not like a normal crash,” said rescue helicopter co-ordinator Xavier Roy. “We normally find big pieces; there are lots of little pieces. There are no wings; no cockpit. Nothing.
“I have never seen anything like it before. The searchers have to be dropped into the crash site by winch from helicopters. No bodies have been brought up yet.”
The aircraft was traveling at 430 mph when it crashed and its impact was “very hard,” according to Jean-Paul Troadec, former head of France’s Bureau of Investigation for Aviation.
His account was echoed by Cazeneuve’s spokesman, Pierre-Henry Brandet, who told NBC News that those who had flown over the site “can’t even identify anything that looks like a plane.”
“We will take all the time necessary” to remove the victims, he added.
Grieving families were also expected to arrive at the scene and Lufthansa — the owner of Germanwings — said it would help transport relatives to the site.








