All 150 Onboard Killed In Germanwings Plane Crash In French Alps

The Germanwings co-pilot had undergone psychotherapy years ago because of suicidal tendencies, a situation experts say is hard for airlines to detect. The prosecutor in charge said treatment had taken place before he, obtained his commercial pilot license. “A few years ago, the co-pilot had been in psychotherapeutic treatment with noted suicide risk over a long period before he gained his pilot license,” Düsseldorf prosecutor Ralf Herrenbrück said.

But the prosecutor also pointed out that the symptoms had not been noted during subsequent treatment, which appears to have lasted until shortly before last Tuesday’s crash. “In the following period and until recently there were further doctors’ visits and sick notes, without suicidal tendencies or aggression towards others attested,” the statement said.

It emerged that Lubitz had visited Düsseldorf University hospital on 10 March, for what the hospital would only describe as a “diagnostic evaluation”. Citing patient confidentiality, a brief hospital statement said it would not reveal any further details, but insisted that media reports that he had been treated for depression there had been false. The New York Times reported that the treatment had been for eyesight problems.

theguardian.com

The co-pilot of the Germanwings jet that crashed in the French Alps deliberately forced the plane into the descent that led to the disaster, the prosecutor said. He pressed a button that accelerated the Airbus A320’s descent when alone in the cockpit. “It was a voluntary action,” Robin said.

The co-pilot – named by the prosecutor as Andreas Lubitz, 28, a German citizen – was alone because the pilot had gone to the toilet. When he returned, the co-pilot refused to open the door. “The intention was to destroy this plane,” he said.

Lubitz was breathing normally at the point of impact, the prosecutor reveals. He said nothing during the final descent, which lasted about 10 minutes. “Absolute silence inside the cockpit. Nothing, no word during the last 10 minutes.”

theguardian.com

Mr. Robin’s conclusions are drawn from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder, recovered at the crash site in the French Alps late Tuesday and analyzed by French accident investigators on Wednesday. The recording contains screams believed to be from passengers, once they recognized the plane was crashing.

A first officer, Lubitz had been flying for Germanwings since September 2013 after being trained with the airline’s parent company Lufthansa at its facility in Bremen. He had clocked up a total of 630 hours in the air.

Members of the Luftsportclub Westerwald, a flying club, of which Lubitz had been a member since he was a teenager in Montabaur, said it had been his dream to fly.

“Andreas became a member of the association and wanted his dream of flying to be realised. He began in the gliding school and made it to become a pilot,” read a statement on the club’s website.

theguardian.com

As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed amid a relatively clear sky, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.

A senior military official involved in the investigation described “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter.

“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer.”

He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”

nytimes.com

Officials investigating the crash have not ruled out terrorism. The remote location of the crash, in the French Alps, has made the site difficult to reach and complicated the investigation.

qz.com

The plane took off from Barcelona around 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning and last contacted air traffic control at 10:30 a.m. Ten minutes later, however, the plane began to descend at a normal speed, without signaling an emergency, before hitting the side of the mountain killing all 150 onboard.

The mountainous area, near the village of Méolans-Revel and close to the border with Italy, has few clear trails, which is complicating the rescue operations. France 24 quoted witnesses saying the weather conditions and visibility were good in the area at the time of the accident.

qz.com

In 2014, it added several more routes including regular flights between Berlin and Nice, Hamburg and Prague, Hamburg and Toulouse, Berlin and Dubrovnik and Hamburg and Reykjavik.

It has been engaged in a long-running row with the German pilots union over pay and conditions, which has led to strikes.

The row between Lufthansa management and the union centers on changes to early retirement benefits that the company wanted to change for new entrants.

mashable.com

As well as a crew of six, there were 144 passengers on board, among them children, understood to be mostly Germans returning home from vacation.

wsj.com

Officials believe 67 of those aboard the plane were German citizens. Forty-five of the passengers had Spanish names, Spain's deputy prime minister said. The passengers included a German school class on its way back from an exchange trip as well as two opera singers, Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak. Ms Radner was travelling with her husband and baby.

The flight was also carrying citizens of Australia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said it was "sadly likely" that some British nationals were on board.

He said the aircraft lost contact with French air traffic controllers at 10:53 at an altitude of about 6,000 feet. The plane did not send out a distress signal, officials said. Earlier reports of a distress call, quoting the French interior ministry, referred to a message from controllers on the ground.

“This is the darkest day in the history of our town,” said Bodo Klimpel, the town’s mayor.

Opera singers Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner were also among the victims on board the , having performed in Barcelona.

As word spread about reports that a plane from Barcelona had gone missing many students began researching online. “And then when the plane didn’t land and they were unable to make contact with their friends and classmates by cell phone, that’s when they assumed the worst had happened,” said Haltern am See mayor Bodo Klimpel, fighting off tears. “The students were informed that there was a sufficient probability that the plane would not be landing in Düsseldorf. Classes were then called off.”

independent.co.uk

But with no direct road access to the crash site, emergency workers faced difficult options: hourslong treks at altitudes of 6,500 feet or rappelling from helicopters unable to land on treacherous mountainous terrain.

“It is really hard to get there,” said Damien Bon, a marshal with the local mountain police.

The recording devices typically provide the best clue why a plane crashed; officials didn’t say whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder that was recovered.