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Germanwings Co-Pilot Accelerated Plane Before Crash, Officials Say

Germanwings Co-Pilot Accelerated Plane Before Crash, Officials Say

By Jessica Camille Aguirre, dpa (TNS)

PARIS — The second black box recovered from the wreckage of Germanwings flight 4U9525 shows that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz accelerated the aircraft as it descended into the Alps, French aviation officials said on Friday.

French aviation authority BEA also said that the flight data recorder confirms that Lubitz changed the autopilot to lower the plane to an altitude of 100 feet, a figure that experts have speculated was likely the lowest that it could have been set at.

The changes, which caused the Airbus A320’s demise and killed all 150 people on board, are the subject of a raft of investigations into the culpability of Lubitz. The BEA findings add to evidence that he destroyed the plane on purpose, although investigators in Germany and France have still not identified a clear motive.

According to audio recordings from the first black box, Lubitz locked the cockpit door, preventing the return of the plane’s main pilot, and was alone while changing the flight controls.

German prosecutors have revealed that Lubitz searched for suicide methods and cockpit locking mechanisms online during the week prior to the fatal crash.

In the absence of a suicide note or claim of responsibility, prosecutors have focused on Lubitz’s psychological history to try to understand what could have prompted the 27-year-old to steer the aircraft into the ground as it flew from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany, on March 24.

A string of revelations have come to light, including that Lubitz had temporarily suspended pilot training in 2009 due to severe depression and had informed Lufthansa, Germanwings’ parent company, of his mental state.

Two days after the crash, Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr had said Lubitz had passed all his medical tests, and that he “was fit for flying without any restrictions.”

Lubitz had also passed medical and psychological evaluations to obtain a student pilot certificate from the US Federal Aviation Authority in 2010.

But a note on his medical file showed that Lubitz had suffered from suicidal tendencies before receiving his pilot’s license, German prosecutors said, and he had regular appointments with doctors despite having no diagnosis of a physical illness.

In the wake of the crash, authorities are scrambling to find out whether there are fundamental flaws in the system that allowed a man with an apparent death wish to sit at the controls of an airliner, and airlines around the world have independently brought in a two-person cockpit rule.

Safety investigators in France and a panel of German officials are conducting separate reviews of aviation safety procedures, including cockpit-locking mechanisms and psychological screening for pilots.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, international standards were put in place requiring reinforced cockpit doors that must be locked during the flight.

If a pilot is incapacitated, there is a way for a cabin crew member to open a locked door, but Lubitz is thought to have overridden this system and manually blocked re-entry.

According to the cockpit voice recorder files heard by French prosecutors, the main pilot grew increasingly insistent in attempting to get a response from Lubitz as the plane descended.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: French prosecutor Brice Robin, center, discusses evidence pointing to deliberate actions by the co-pilot in the crash of a Germanwings jet, killing all 150 people on board, during a press conference on Thursday, March 26, 2015. Robin confirmed that Andreas Lubitz, a 28-year-old German citizen, refused to reopen the cockpit door for the pilot and pressed a button that sent the plane into its fatal descent. (Ruoppolo Guillaume/Maxppp/Zuma Press/TNS)

Damaged Black Box Sent For Analysis In Alps Plane Crash

Damaged Black Box Sent For Analysis In Alps Plane Crash

By Jessica Camille Aguirre, dpa (TNS)

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France — A severely damaged cockpit voice recorder is one of the only leads in the fatal crash of Germanwings flight 4U 9525 in the French Alps, where some 650 searchers started combing a section of mountain face at daybreak on Wednesday.

The black box records sounds in the cockpit and could reveal information about the plane’s last moments. Another black box — the flight data recorder, which records the aircraft’s parameters — has not yet been recovered.

“If there are voices, it will be assessed rapidly,” French Transport Secretary Alain Vidal told broadcaster Europe 1, adding that the first black box had been turned over to the French aviation authority, BEA, in Paris.

“If there are other sounds to be analyzed, if could take weeks — but could also give us an explanation,” he added.

Germanwings flight 4U 9525, carrying 144 passengers and six crew members from Barcelona, Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany, crashed in apparent good weather near the town of Prads-Haute-Bleone after making a rapid eight-minute descent.

The jet’s wreckage was strewn across steep terrain at an altitude of 6,500 feet, in a remote region that proved difficult for searchers to access. Overnight snow in the region complicated Wednesday morning’s efforts.

“We are here in the mountains,” Police Chief David Galtier told reporters. “So we have to proceed with extreme caution. The most important thing is to secure the area and cover the bodies.”

The strength of the impact rendered much of the remnants unrecognizable. Another investigator told local media that, “the largest body parts we have located are not very large.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy were due at the site later Wednesday.

Local authorities have set up sites to receive relatives of victims, as well as emergency medical and psychological care facilities.

Officials said initial counts indicated that there were at least 67 German citizens and 45 Spaniards on board.

Two opera singers who were returning from a performance in Barcelona, two babies and a group of 16 high school students who had gone to the Spanish city for an exchange program were all among the passengers. The Australian government confirmed that an Australian woman and her son were also on board.

Japanese government officials said they were trying to confirm whether two Japanese nationals listed as passengers were indeed aboard the aircraft, and the British government said it was “likely” that Britons were on the flight.

Germanwings parent Lufthansa announced held a minute of silence exactly 24 hours after the plane’s contact with French air traffic control broke off.

Lufthansa cancelled one Germanwings flight on Wednesday morning, after cancelling 24 flights the day before.

In Brussels, flags were flown at half mast in front of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive. The bloc’s parliament was due later Wednesday to begin its plenary session with a minute of silence to remember the victims.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Rescue helicopters and a rescue team from the French Securite Civile fly over the French Alps during a rescue operation after the crash of an Airbus A320 near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on Tuesday, March 24, 2015. (Julien Tack/Abaca Press/TNS)

French Crews To Resume Efforts At Dawn To Reach Germanwings Wreckage

French Crews To Resume Efforts At Dawn To Reach Germanwings Wreckage

By Jessica Camille Aguirre, dpa (TNS)

PARIS — Search crews planned to resume helicopter flights around dawn Wednesday to remote mountainside in southern France where a Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed after a rapid descent, likely killing all 150 people aboard.

The crash, one of the deadliest aviation disasters in German history, occurred in apparent good weather Tuesday near the town of Prads-Haute-Bleone, in the French Alps.

Authorities said it was considered an accident, and German security officials told dpa there was no evidence of terrorism.

There were 144 passengers and six crew members on Flight 4U 9525, which was travelling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany.

Germanwings is the budget carrier owned by Lufthansa.

After a helicopter tour before nightfall, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the crash site a “picture of horror.”

Police hoped to resume helicopter missions by 6 a.m. to shuttle crews to the inaccessible valley where jet’s wreckage was strewn across steep terrain. Another team of about 65 rescue workers were climbing to the site on foot.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that the remote location and subsequent rain were slowing rescue workers, who might need days to recover victims’ remains.

The 24-year-old Airbus had experienced a technical problem with its nose landing-gear door on Monday morning, a Lufthansa spokeswoman confirmed. The problem involved a hatch that opens and closes when the nose landing gear is deployed and was solved through a routine repair, the spokeswoman told dpa.

Lufthansa Chairman Carsten Spohr called Tuesday a “dark day” in a tweet: “My deepest sympathy goes to the families and friends of our passengers and crew.” He said the aircraft was in “excellent” condition.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a flight recorder had been recovered from the site and was handed over to investigators for analysis. Some 380 firefighters, 300 soldiers, 12 helicopters and a military plane have been deployed in the recovery efforts.

French President Francois Hollande called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to express condolences, and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he also spoke with Merkel. The three leaders were due to travel Wednesday to the crash site.

Three days of mourning started Wednesday in Spain.

“I lament, as we all do, this sad and dramatic accident,” Rajoy told journalists.

Images from the site showed obliterated aircraft wreckage strewn along a mountain face at an altitude of 6,500 feet.

“There are bits of debris, nothing more than tiny pieces,” mountain guide Jean-Louis Bietrix, who accompanied searchers, told broadcaster BFM-TV. “The plane disappeared completely.”

Officials said initial counts indicated that there were at least 67 German citizens and 45 Spaniards on board, as well as one Belgian.

Among those on the plane were 16 students and two teachers from the Joseph Koenig High School in the western German city of Haltern. The students, ages 15 and 16, had been on a one-week exchange program to Barcelona.

Opera singer Oleg Bryjak, 54, was a passenger, the Dusseldorf opera said. He was returning to Germany after performing the bass baritone role in Richard Wagner’s “Siegfried” in Barcelona.

The Danish Foreign Ministry said one Dane was on the plane.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop confirmed that a woman and her adult son from Victoria state were on the flight.

In Israel, there were media reports that a 39-year-old Israeli businessman was aboard.

Flight 4U 9525 was scheduled to depart Barcelona’s El Prat airport at 9:35 a.m. but was delayed until 10:01 a.m. It was scheduled to land in Dusseldorf at 11:55 a.m.

Germanwings Chief Executive Thomas Winkelmann said the aircraft reached its regular cruising altitude of about 39,000 feet at 10:45 a.m. but after one minute it left that height. He said the plane went into a steep eight-minute descent before hitting the ground.

French air traffic controllers lost contact with the airliner at 10:53 a.m. at an altitude of about 5,900 feet.

The French civil aviation authority said the crew had not sent out a distress call. Instead, an air controller sent one after losing contact with the aircraft.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Rescue helicopters and a rescue team from the French Securite Civile fly over the French Alps during a rescue operation after the crash of an Airbus A320 near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, on Tuesday, March 24, 2015. (Julien Tack/Abaca Press/TNS)