Third American victim in Germanwings crash identified as Robert Oliver

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/26/third-american-victim-germanwings-crash-robert-oliver

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The third American killed in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps was named on Thursday as Robert Oliver, a US citizen who lived and worked in Spain.

Oliver, 37, worked for the Spanish clothing design firm Desigual and, according to social media accounts, appeared to travel regularly for work.

Related: Germanwings plane crash: Virginia mother and daughter named as victims

He was married with children and his family lived in Barcelona. His father, Robert Tansill Oliver, said in an interview that this was the time for families of the victims to focus on the “wonderful moments” in the lives of their loved ones, not the “final crash”.

The victim is also known as Robert Oliver Calvo, although he calls himself simply Robert Oliver on his Facebook page, where he had posted a picture of himself smiling in front of a Desigual company logo.

It appears clear from his Facebook page that he traveled regularly for work, and he was on a business trip from Barcelona to Dusseldorf with a colleague when he boarded the Germanwings flight. He said on his page that he was born in Rubí, in the Catalonia region of north-eastern Spain.

The US State Department confirmed he was a US citizen.

He was traveling with a Spanish colleague, Laura Altamira, at the time of his death, according to a Desigual spokesman.

Oliver dealt with real estate business for the company. The spokesman said the company canceled 200 family and friends events that had been organized at Desigual outlets when the news came in about the crash and the employees’ deaths.

“It was very difficult on all of us,” the company said in a statement on Thursday. Desigual has created a tribute to the victims at the entrance of the company’s Barcelona headquarters.

Robert Oliver Sr said the family had chosen not to travel to the remote and rugged crash site in the mountains where the jet made impact at high speed because “there is nothing to see”.