Germanwings flight attendant publishes book on relatives' assistance after 2015 crash

A Germanwings flight attendant who helped relatives of the victims of flight 4U9525 has published a book about the days after the March 2015 crash, according to an account of the work published this week.

Kacem Bitich was off duty on the morning of 24 March 2015 when he learned that one of the airline's aircraft had gone down. The Airbus A320 was carrying 150 people when it struck the French Alps. Bitich belonged to the carrier's Special Assistance Team, trained to look after families after an accident.

He describes interrupting a shopping trip in Cologne and going home to gather the paperwork and equipment his training required: three days of clothing, his SAT identification, a charger, cash, a bank card and a passport. One part of him worked through the checklist, he says, while another could not grasp what had happened. He spent the following days at Düsseldorf airport, where a memorial plaque now reads that love is stronger than death.

Written in German, the book recounts how the assignment continued to affect his life. The extract gives only a partial reference to the title and makes no new claims about the cause of the crash or the investigation that followed.