CRI听力:Germany Pays Tribute to Germanwings Crash Victims

Grieving relatives joined political and religious leaders Friday at a German memorial service for the victims of last month's Germanwings crash in the French Alps.

Flags flew at half-mast nationwide in commemoration of the 150 dead.

The service was attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck along with ministers from France and Spain.

German president Joachim Gauck also adressed the gathering: "We don't know anything about the mental state of the co-pilot who has taken his own life and the lives of 149 other people. We really don't know what was going through his head during those deciding seconds, in the deciding minutes. But we do know that his relatives have also lost on 24 March a person who they loved, who leaves a void in their lives - in a way in which they can find as little sense as all of the others' relatives can. Maybe that is what appalled us so much, the senselessness of what took place."

The co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had been diagnosed as suicidal in the past, is believed to have deliberately flown the plane into the mountainside after locking the pilot out of the cockpit.

He was receiving treatment from doctors who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including the day of the crash.

Aviation industry officials have demanded that German pilots undergo more extensive medical checks, while several airlines worldwide have changed rules to require two crew in cockpits at all times in the wake of the crash.