The co-pilot "voluntarily" initiated the descent of the Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps and refused to open the door to the pilot who was outside the cockpit, the lead investigator said.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the co-pilot - named as 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz - seemed to "show a desire to want to destroy the plane".
"The co-pilot is alone at the controls," said Mr Robin, recounting information gathered from the "black box" recorder.
"He voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit to the pilot and voluntarily began the descent of the plane."
Mr Robin told a press conference he had received the information late last night.
He said: "The co-pilot uses the flight monitoring system to start the descent of the plane. This can only be done voluntarily, not automatically.
"We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself - but there is no answer.
"He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened - but there is no answer."
Asked whether he believed the crash that killed 150 people was the result of suicide, Mr Robin said: "People who commit suicide usually do so alone....I don't call it a suicide."
He also said the cockpit voice recording suggests that passengers' screams began just before the final impact.
The Airbus A320 hit the mountainside at 700km/h and the passengers died "instantly", he added.
Flight 4U 9525, which was en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday morning.
Mr Robin told a press conference in Marseille that the German co-pilot was not known as a "wanted terrorist".
He said the sounds on the "black box" suggest Mr Lubitz was alive and breathing until impact and "was breathing normally, it wasn't the breathing of someone who was struggling".
Lufthansa said Mr Lubitz had been on the job since September 2013 and had 630 hours of flying experience......................http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0326/689815-alps-plane-crash/
26/3/15
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Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the co-pilot - named as 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz - seemed to "show a desire to want to destroy the plane".
"The co-pilot is alone at the controls," said Mr Robin, recounting information gathered from the "black box" recorder.
"He voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit to the pilot and voluntarily began the descent of the plane."
Mr Robin told a press conference he had received the information late last night.
He said: "The co-pilot uses the flight monitoring system to start the descent of the plane. This can only be done voluntarily, not automatically.
"We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself - but there is no answer.
"He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened - but there is no answer."
Asked whether he believed the crash that killed 150 people was the result of suicide, Mr Robin said: "People who commit suicide usually do so alone....I don't call it a suicide."
He also said the cockpit voice recording suggests that passengers' screams began just before the final impact.
The Airbus A320 hit the mountainside at 700km/h and the passengers died "instantly", he added.
Flight 4U 9525, which was en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday morning.
Mr Robin told a press conference in Marseille that the German co-pilot was not known as a "wanted terrorist".
He said the sounds on the "black box" suggest Mr Lubitz was alive and breathing until impact and "was breathing normally, it wasn't the breathing of someone who was struggling".
Lufthansa said Mr Lubitz had been on the job since September 2013 and had 630 hours of flying experience......................http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0326/689815-alps-plane-crash/
26/3/15
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German police have seized possessions belonging to a co-pilot who apparently crashed his plane in the French Alps killing all 150 people on board, as they investigate his possible motives....
ReplyDeleteThey said they had found a significant clue, according to media reports.
Data from the plane's voice recorder suggest Mr Lubitz had deliberately started a descent while the pilot was locked out of the cockpit..............http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32081681
27/3/15
Crash A320: le pilote a tenté de forcer l'entrée avec une hache...
ReplyDeletelors que son copilote était en train de manoeuvrer l'avion vers le sol pour des raisons encore inconnues, le pilote du vol Germanwings, qui était sorti de la cabine pour quelques minutes, a utilisé une hache se trouvant à bord de l'appareil pour tenter de forcer la porte blindée, selon ces sources, et tenter d'empêcher la catastrophe, rapporte Bild.
L'Organisation de l'aviation civile internationale (OACI) a réaffirmé jeudi la nécessité que les pilotes d'avions fassent l'objet d'un suivi psychologique et physique régulier, après le crash de l' A320 de Germanwings délibérément provoqué par le copilote.............http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20150327/1015360829.html#ixzz3VZsdx5Fg
27/3/15
The German prosecutors' office has said it has found documents that show the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday killing 150 people was receiving medical treatment...
ReplyDeleteProsecutors say Andreas Lubitz, who is believed to have crashed the plane deliberately, hid the illness from his employer.
They said he had hidden a sick leave note for the day of the crash.
The office said that the no suicide note had been found, and there was no indication of any political or religious motives.
It added that evaluation of documents found in his home will take some days..............http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0327/690092-germanwings-plane-crash/
27/3/15
Germanwings air crash co-pilot Lubitz knew French Alps...
ReplyDeleteThe co-pilot suspected of crashing a German airliner into the French Alps, killing himself and 149 others, knew the region from gliding holidays.
A member of the Montabaur flight school where Andreas Lubitz took lessons confirmed to BBC News the co-pilot had flown a glider over the region.
Mr Lubitz was on holiday at the time, several years ago, Dieter Wagner said.
A French newspaper reports that the co-pilot holidayed at a local flying club with his parents from the age of nine.
Investigators are trying to establish what may have motivated Mr Lubitz to seize sole control of the Airbus A320 and crash it.
German prosecutors believe he was concealing an illness from his employer, Germanwings, at the time of the crash..................http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32097106
28/3/15
Germanwings co-pilot 'planned a place in history'...
ReplyDeleteAn ex-girlfriend of the co-pilot who deliberately crashed a Germanwings plane, killing all 150 on board, has told how he vowed to "do something" history would remember him by, according to reports.
Germanwings co-pilot told ex ‘one day everyone will know my name’...
ReplyDeleteThe Germanwings co-pilot who crashed his Airbus in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, told his ex-girlfriend that "one day everyone will know my name", according to German newspaper Bild.
In an interview, the 26-year-old flight attendant known as Maria W told Bild that when she heard about the crash she recalled Andreas Lubitz telling her last year: "One day I'm going to do something that will change the whole system, and everyone will know my name and remember."
The black box voice recorder indicates that Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials say, in what appears to have been a case of suicide and mass killing.................http://www.france24.com/en/20150328-germanwings-pilot-lubitz-history-name/
28/3/15