Swedish third-tier club Dalkurd avoid Germanwings flight

Players and staff from Swedish third-tier side Dalkurd narrowly avoided being on the doomed Germanwings flight that left 150 people presumed dead on Tuesday.

Flight 4U9525 departed Barcelona for Dusseldorf, but crashed in the French Alps.

Dalkurd had 29 players and staff who were returning home from Spain after a one-week training camp, and only decided to bypass the Dusseldorf-bound flight due to stopover length – instead flying via Zurich and Munich.

“We were supposed to have been on that flight. We checked in with all of the passengers. It’s surreal,” Dalkurd sporting director Adil Kizil told Aftonbladet.

“When we got to the airport in Barcelona there were four flights leaving that time, flying north over the Alps.

“Four flights and we had players on three of them. Let’s just say we were very lucky.”

Dalkurd are scheduled to open their Division 1 campaign at home to Vasalunds on April 12.