Hearses carrying the remains of some of the German victims killed in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps in March were driven past the school where some of the dead were students.
Hundreds of people lined the street outside the Joseph Koenig high school in the small town of Haltern am See near Duesseldorf where 16 students who died on 24 March had attended classes.
The teenagers were on their way home after a week-long Spanish exchange programme at the Institut Giola in Llinars del Valls near Barcelona.
It was a reciprocal visit after 12 Spanish students had spent a week at their school in December.
The procession took place almost three months after flight 9525 was brought down by its co-pilot, killing everyone on board.
Forty-four coffins arrived at Duesseldorf airport last night from Marseille before they were transported in hearses from Duesseldorf this afternoon.
The coffins were loaded into the Lufthansa MD-11 cargo plane at Marseille's Marignane airport and the flight landed in Germany shortly after 10.30pm last night, a spokesman for the airline said.
Lufthansa is the parent company of budget airline Germanwings.
A total of 72 Germans were on board the Airbus A320, which was heading from Barcelona to Duesseldorf when it crashed in the French Alps.
Brice Robin, the French prosecutor who is leading the investigation into the crash, is due to meet tomorrow with relatives of some of the other victims to discuss the identification and repatriation of remains.
"After this first special flight to Duesseldorf, the other victims will be gradually transferred to their home countries in the coming weeks," Lufthansa said.
"The French authorities are working hard in order to create the formal conditions for the transfer of the victims as soon as possible."
"Lufthansa is in close contact with the relatives to ensure that the transfer of the victims is carried out according to the relatives' wishes."
Investigators last month finished identifying the remains of all 150 people aboard Germanwings Flight 4U 9525.
They say that 27-year-old German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had a history of severe depression, intentionally downed the plane.
