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 A U.S. contractor and her college graduate daughter were identified Wednesday as two Americans killed aboard the Germanwings plane that plunged into a French Alps mountainside, while the State Department confirmed that a third American also died. 
 
 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 box from 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 almost 23 years for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Washington, D.C., 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. 
 
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 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." 
 
 Emily Selke was a music industry major at Drexel's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design. She had been working as a community manager at Carr Workplaces, which finds office space to companies, since last year. 
 
 "We cherished Emily's work ethic, enthusiasm, humor, and overall presence," the company said in a statement. "She was dedicated, helpful, and always willing to go the extra mile, especially when it came to her passion for hospitality and event planning. Her genuine, bright smile and quick wit will be missed." 
 
 Kathy Burr, director of education at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Manassas, Virginia, where the Selke family have been members since 1993, recalled that Yvonne Selke volunteered at the church and that Emily sang in the choir as a child. 
 
 Yvonne Selke "helped with our library, and she also helped in the faith formation program," Burr told NBC News. "She listened to prayers of the little children and was a substitute for the classroom." 
 
 Emily Selke, who attended second through eighth grade at the church school, "stayed close to the church," Burr said. "She was just a very special young woman." 
 
 "I'd like them to be remembered as just spiritual people who are close their church, close to their God [and] close to their community," she said. "And they'll be remembered for a long long time." 
 
 Ryan Ocksrider, a neighbor of the Selkes' in Nokesville, likewise described the Selkes as "nice people." 
 
 "Real shocking, you know," he told NBC News. "Life could be over in a flash. They were good people." 
 
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 — Erik Ortiz and Kristen Welker ||||| They came from as far away as Australia, Iran, Morocco and Venezuela, and their lives ended together in France's deadliest plane crash in decades. 
 
 FILE - In this March 22, 2010 file photo singer Maria Radner as first norn performs during a dress rehearsal for Richard Wagner's opera "Goetterdaemmerung" which is part of the Salzburg Easter Festival... (Associated Press) 
 
 This is an undated image of Paul Andrew Bramley who died in the Germanwings plane crash provided by his family Wednesday March 25, 2015. Bramley who originally came from Hull in England died on Germanwings... (Associated Press) 
 
 Undated photo provided by Balmer & Dixon Management shows late bass-baritone Oleg Bryjak. Bryjak was among the 150 people on the Germanwings flights from Barcelona to Duesseldorf that crashed Tuesday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS SOURCE IN CAPTION AND REMOVES EXTRANEOUS INFORMATION IN SECOND LINE - This is an undated image of Martyn Matthews, second left, who died in the Germanwings plane crash, provided... (Associated Press) 
 
 The victims included two babies, schoolchildren going home from an exchange visit, a pair of acclaimed German opera singers and a member of an Argentine rock band, three generations of the same family, a vacationing mother and son, a recently married couple, people on business trips and others going home. 
 
 Germanwings said 144 passengers and six crew members were on board its plane that crashed Tuesday in the French Alps on its way from Barcelona to Duesseldorf. 
 
 Here are details of some of the victims: 
 
 ___ 
 
 Sixteen high-school students and two teachers, Germany 
 
 The students and their teachers were returning from an exchange program in Spain. Their names have not been released. 
 
 The group was from Haltern, a rural town 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Duesseldorf, where it seemed everyone knew someone who had died. 
 
 The principal of Joseph Koenig High School, Ulrich Wessel, called the loss of his students and two teachers — one who had just married and another who was soon to be — a "tragedy that renders one speechless." 
 
 "I was asked yesterday how many students there are at the high school in Haltern, and I said 1,283 without thinking. Then had to say afterward, unfortunately, 16 fewer since yesterday," he said. "That's just terrible." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Maria Radner, her husband and their baby, Germany 
 
 Maria Radner, a 34-year-old contralto from Duesseldorf, her husband and infant son were among the victims, Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu said. 
 
 The Spanish opera house said she played the goddess Erda in Richard Wagner's "Siegfried" last weekend. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Oleg Bryjak, Germany 
 
 Bass baritone Oleg Bryjak, had performed along with Radner in the production of "Siegfried" at Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu, the opera house said. Bryjak, 54, had sung the part of Alberich. 
 
 Bryjak was born in Ukraine of Kazakhstani origin and had moved to Germany in 1991 where he was the soloist at the Deutsche Opera am Rhein in Duesseldorf. Its director, Christoph Meyer, said that "we have lost a great performer and a great person in Oleg Bryjak." 
 
 Christina Scheppelmann, artistic director of the Liceu, said: "The mood is ominous, like it should be in any kind of workplace facing a tragedy like this one." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Three members of the same family, Spain 
 
 Three generations of one family — a schoolgirl, her mother and grandmother — were on the plane that crashed, according to a statement from the town hall in Sant Cugat del Valles, outside Barcelona. 
 
 The girl was a middle school student, for children aged 10-11, at Santa Isabel school in Sant Cugat, the statement said, without providing the family names. 
 
 "The students are very affected. The teachers are trying to help them any way they can," said a woman who answered the phone at the school. She refused to give her name or say more. 
 
 ____ 
 
 Asmae Ouahhoud el Allaoui and her husband, Spain 
 
 Ouahhoud el Allaoui, 23, got married on Saturday and was moving to Duesseldorf, according to the town hall of La Llagosta in northeastern Spain, where she was from. Her husband, an unnamed Moroccan, was also on the plane. The town hall said another man born there, Francisco Javier Gonalons, 42, also died in the crash. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Mireia Serrat, Spain 
 
 Serrat was export director for Spanish industrial manufacturer INOXPA, the Girona, Spain-based company said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Maria Luisa Romanos, Spain 
 
 Romanos was the wife of INOXPA owner Candi Granes, the company said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Manuel Rives, Spain 
 
 Rives worked for the Delphi company outside Barcelona, Spain's UGT union said. Rives was traveling with a Delphi human resources executive, the union said in a statement without giving the executive's name. Both were planning to attend a human resources conference. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Carles Milla, Spain 
 
 Milla, a married 37-year-old, was going to a food technology fair in Cologne on behalf of Milla Masanas, a small food machinery company in the town of Cornella de Terri, north of Barcelona, the company's managing director said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio and her infant son Julian, Britain 
 
 Lopez-Belio had been attending an uncle's funeral in Jaca, a small Spanish town in the Pyrenees mountains, her husband Pawel Pracz said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office. Lopez-Belio, editor and colorist working in film post-production and who lived in Britain, was on the flight with her 7-month-old son Julian. 
 
 Unable to find a direct flight to Manchester, the chose to connect from Barcelona via Duesseldorf. "She bought the tickets at the last moment, and decided to return to Manchester quickly as she wanted to return to her daily routine as soon as possible," her husband said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Paul Andrew Bramley, Britain 
 
 Bramley, 28, was studying hospitality and hotel management at Ceasar Ritz College in Lucerne. He had just finished his first year in college and was about to start an internship on April 1. 
 
 He had taken a few days of vacation with friends in Barcelona and was on his way back to Britain to meet his mother, who was traveling from her home in Majorca to see him. 
 
 "Paul was a kind, caring and loving son," his mother Carol Bramley said in a statement. "He was the best son, he was my world." 
 
 ____ 
 
 Martyn Matthews, Britain 
 
 Matthews, 50, was a senior quality manager from Wolverhampton. He is survived by his wife, Sharon, and his two children, the Foreign Office said. "We are devastated at the news of this tragic incident and request that we are allowed to deal with this terrible news without intrusion at this difficult time," the family said in a statement. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Carol and Greig Friday, Australia 
 
 Carol, a married mother of two, celebrated her 68th birthday on the eve of the crash, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said. She was vacationing with her son Greig, who was due to turn 30 next month and was to teach English in Europe. Bishop read out a statement from the family in which they said they were "in deep disbelief and crippled with sadness." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Yvonne and Emily Selke, United States 
 
 Yvonne Selke of Nokesville, Virginia, worked for Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. in Washington and performed work under contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's secretive satellite mapping office, according to a person close to the family. She was travelling with her grown daughter Emily — a 2013 graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia who worked for Carr Workplaces of Alexandria, Va. The U.S. State Department said a third American citizen was also on board the flight and that the victim's family had been notified. It did not release the name out of respect for the family. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Junichi Sato, Japan 
 
 Sato, one of two Japanese victims, was based in Duesseldorf where he worked for Japanese machinery maker Seika Corp.'s local branch. The company said Sato had been in Barcelona, Spain, for a business trip. 
 
 "I'm speechless. My heart is totally broken," Sato's father Yukio said in an interview with Nippon Television Network Corp. from Hokkaido, their hometown in northern Japan. "I'm so proud of my son — he was working very hard as a businessman." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Gabriela Lujan Maumus and Sebastian Greco, Argentina 
 
 Maumus was 28 and played in a rock band called Asalto al Parque Zoologico, or Assault on the Zoo Park, according to local website infobae.com. The group released an album a few months ago and had a concert scheduled for March 29 in Buenos Aires, according to the band's Facebook page and Twitter account. Greco was a financial analyst, according to his LinkedIn profile. The couple was in Europe on vacation. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Juan Armando Pomo, Argentina 
 
 Pomo, 51, was a businessman who for more than 20 years had lived in Asuncion, Paraguay. He was married with two teenage children, according to Infobae. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Eyal Baum, Israel 
 
 Baum, 39, lived in Barcelona with his wife, Baum's sister Liat told Army Radio. "He was amazing, with a winning smile. Whoever met him fell in love with him from the first moment," she said, in tears. "The thought of what he went through in those moments is very difficult." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Luis Eduardo Medrano, Colombia 
 
 Medrano, a 36-year-old architect, had been vacationing in Europe. His family expected him to return to his native city of Popayan after working several years for an engineering firm in Equatorial Guinea. Medrano's father told local newspaper El Tiempo that shortly before takeoff he received a brief text message from his son: "Flying to Germany." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Maria del Pilar Tejada, Colombia 
 
 Tejada, 33, was an economist doing doctoral work at Bonn University, according to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Erbol Imankulov, Kazakhstan 
 
 Imankulov was director of a silicon plant in the eastern Kazakh city of Karaganda, according to state news agency Kazinform. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Milad Hojatoleslami and Hossein Javadi, Iran 
 
 Hojatoleslami worked for the semi-official Tasnim news agency and Javadi was a journalist at the Vatan-e-Emrouz daily, Iran's official IRNA news agency said, quoting the foreign ministry. The reporters were in Barcelona to cover last Sunday's soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid and planned to cover Iran's friendly games against Chile and Sweden in Austria and Stockholm, respectively, according to IRNA. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Daniela Ayon Razo, Mexico 
 
 Ayon Razo, 36, was a Yoga teacher, her friend and fellow Yoga teacher Maria Andrea Meza said. 
 
 Daniela loved to travel the world giving yoga classes. "In the end, she died doing what she loved, she loved to travel," Meza said. 
 
 "Daniela was a person who was super alive, full of happiness and dreams," said Meza. "She took advantage of every moment of life to the fullest." 
 
 "She left a lasting mark on people's lives," she said, adding she brought what she learned in India and other places back to Mexico. "Daniela was magic, she changed your way of seeing things, your way of thinking." ||||| Emily Selke of Nokesville, Va., shown in Scotland in 2013, died with her mother in the plane crash in the French Alps. (Xela Batchelder /AP) 
 
 A mother and daughter from Prince William County were among three Americans who perished when an Airbus jet plunged into a frozen ridge in the French Alps this week, officials said Wednesday. 
 
 Yvonne Selke, a longtime government contractor, and Emily Selke, a recent graduate of Drexel University, died Tuesday along with 148 others on the Germanwings flight from Spain to Germany. 
 
 Raymond Selke said he was too distraught to discuss the lives of his wife and daughter or why they were aboard the flight, but the family released a brief statement asking for time to heal. 
 
 “Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke,” the statement read. “Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers.” 
 
 The mystery of why the plane plunged from its flight path endured Wednesday, even as top leaders from Europe monitored the investigation of the crash and recovery efforts continued near the southern French town of Seyne-les-Alpes. 
 
 [Officials: Flight recorder recovered but damaged] 
 
 France’s president was joined by the leaders of Germany and Spain in an Alpine pasture now used as a base for experts seeking to unravel what led to the crash. The three, walking side by side, were briefed on the grim recovery efforts in the snowbound French mountains. 
 
 Earlier in the day, one of the flight recorders — or black boxes — was recovered in a damaged state amid the wide debris field. The Associated Press reported that French investigators cracked open the black box and retrieved some audio from its cockpit voice recorder by Wednesday afternoon, hoping to gain their first insights into the possible causes of the crash. 
 
 Remi Jouty, director of the French aviation investigative agency, said the audio included sounds and voices. He said it was too early to draw any conclusions from the recorder. French President François Hollande, meanwhile, said the case for the second black box, the flight data recorder, had been found but not its contents, according to the AP. 
 
 In the D.C. area, family, friends and co-workers of the Selkes reacted with shock and grief to their deaths. Yvonne Selke was an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton for nearly 23 years, according to the company. She was working on a contract with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. 
 
 “Yvonne was a wonderful co-worker and a dedicated employee,” Betty Thompson, an executive vice president, wrote in a statement. “We are in contact with her family to provide comfort and support, and are providing support options to her co-workers, as well.” 
 
 One former classmate said Yvonne Selke had kept in touch with some friends from the Class of 1975 at Springfield High School and had planned to attend their 40th reunion. 
 
 Emily Selke graduated with honors from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 2013, according to the school. She majored in music industry in the school’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design. 
 
 An online résumé listed her as a community manager for an Alexandria firm that offers working space for professionals and a lifetime Girl Scout. The Drexel University Gamma Sigma Sigma chapter posted a message on Facebook saying Selke served as vice president of the service sorority. 
 
 Drexel professor Xela Batchelder said Selke became involved in an effort to start a local theater and music festival in Pittsburgh. Selke was interested in a career in the music industry, Batchelder said, and took classes on festival and entertainment management. 
 
 “What I really liked about her is that she knew what she wanted to do,” Batchelder said. “She took all these extra opportunities that weren’t required to learn more about festival management. She was a good self-starter.” 
 
 Batchelder said Selke went on a study-abroad trip to Edinburgh to take part in the city’s popular fringe festival. Batchelder said that Yvonne Selke joined her daughter for the Scotland trip and that the pair adored each other. 
 
 Taylor Miller, 21, said Emily Selke was well known at Woodbridge Senior High, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2010. Miller said Selke was a choir singer with a sweet-sounding voice and a writer whose words flowed off the page. Miller said that her creative-writing classmate stunned other students to silence when Selke read her work aloud. 
 
 “Everybody would just melt with what she wrote,” said Miller, of Keyser, W.Va. 
 
 Miller said Selke could be wickedly sarcastic with her humor, then wow friends a moment later with her kindness. 
 
 “She was the most open-minded, nicest person,” Miller said. “She didn’t care if you were a jock or an introvert. She wanted to get to know you. That’s why everyone gravitated to Emily — because she wanted to be around you, and people wanted to be around her.” 
 
 Miller said she once visited the Selkes’ Nokesville home and was blown away by the family’s idyllic cul-de-sac. 
 
 “She had the perfect life,” Miller said. “She had a nice house, nice clothes. But she was so humble. It didn’t matter who you were. She was always polite and kind.” 
 
 French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told France’s RTL radio that all theories about what might have caused the crash must be explored but that a terrorist attack was not the most likely scenario. 
 
 [The plane’s final moments, minute by minute ] 
 
 Bundled against strong winds, Hollande thanked the teams leading the efforts to reach the crash site by helicopter and by foot. He was accompanied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. 
 
 Meanwhile, the human toll of the crash became clearer. Those lost included two babies, two opera singers, a pair of Iranian journalists, an Australian mother and her adult son vacationing together, and 16 German 10th-graders and their teachers returning from an exchange trip. 
 
 In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed the Selkes’ deaths but did not identify the third American victim. Most of the other dead were from Germany and Spain. She said U.S. officials were reviewing records to determine whether other Americans were on the flight as the recovery for bodies began. “We are in contact with family members and we extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the 150 people on board,” Psaki said in a statement. 
 
 Kirchner reported from Haltern, Germany. Daniela Deane in London and Jennifer Jenkins and Victoria St. Martin in Washington contributed to this report.
– At least three Americans were aboard the passenger jet that crashed in the French Alps yesterday, including a mother and daughter from Virginia. Those two have been identified as Yvonne Selke, a veteran government contractor who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton in DC, and daughter Emily, a 2013 graduate of Drexel University. The third American killed has not been identified yet, reports NBC News. The Selkes are from Nokesville, Va., where Raymond Selke, husband and father to the victims, was too distraught to speak with the Washington Post. "Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke," the family said in a statement released later. "Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers." Emily Selke's sorority, Gamma Sigma Sigma, posted a note on Facebook saying she "always put others before herself" and will be "greatly missed." She was working for Carr Workplaces of Alexandria, Va., reports AP. Her mother was working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's satellite mapping office,