Home World News Germanwings Plane Crash That Killed 150 People Was Murder-Suicide; Co-Pilot Wanted to...
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French President Francois Hollande (L), Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (R) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) speaks with rescue workers as they arrive in Seyne-les-Alpes March Christian Post Report – 25, Christian Post Report – 2015, the day after the air crash of a Germanwings Airbus A3Christian Post Report – 20. Hollande, Merkel and Rajoy arrived in the village of Seyne-les-Alpes, where French investigators have set up headquarters for search operations in the nearby ravine where an Airbus plane smashed into a mountain, ahead of an international homage to the 150 victims.
(Photo: Reuters/Emmanuel Foudrot)
A French gendarme helicopter flies over the crash site of an Airbus A3Christian Post Report – 20, near Seyne-les-Alpes, March Christian Post Report – 25, Christian Post Report – 2015. French investigators will sift through wreckage on Wednesday for clues into why a German Airbus operated by Lufthansa’s Germanwings budget airline plowed into an Alpine mountainside, killing all 150 people on board including 16 schoolchildren returning from an exchange trip to Spain.
(Photo: Reuters/Ina Fassbender)
Students of Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school hold a minute of silence outside their school in Haltern am See, March, Christian Post Report – 26, Christian Post Report – 2015. The deaths of 16 teenage students and two young teachers in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps left the lakeside town of Haltern am See in a state of shock on Wednesday, with the German nation sharing in their mourning and grief.
(Photo: Reuters/Ina Fassbender)
Students stand in front of the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in Haltern am See, March, Christian Post Report – 26, Christian Post Report – 2015. The deaths of 16 teenage students and two young teachers in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps left the lakeside town of Haltern am See in a state of shock on Wednesday, with the German nation sharing in their mourning and grief. French investigators searched for clues as to why the German Airbus flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf ploughed into an Alpine mountainside, killing all 150 on board, including 16 German students from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school who were on a Spanish language exchange programme.
(Photo: Reuters/Ina Fassbender)
A death notice for the 16 students and two teachers of the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school is seen in a regional newspaper in Haltern am See, March Christian Post Report – 26, Christian Post Report – 2015. The deaths of 16 teenage students and two young teachers in the Germanwings plane crash in the French Alps left the lakeside town of Haltern am See in a state of shock on Wednesday, with the German nation sharing in their mourning and grief. French investigators searched for clues as to why the German Airbus flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf ploughed into an Alpine mountainside, killing all 150 on board, including 16 German students from the Joseph-Koenig-Gymnasium high school who were on a Spanish language exchange programme.
French officials said on Thursday that the Germanwings Flight 95Christian Post Report – 25 plane crash that killed all 150 people on board was deliberately carried out, with co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locking himself in the cockpit with the intention to “destroy the plane.”
“The most plausible interpretation is that the co-pilot, through a voluntary act, had refused to open the cabin door to let the captain in. He pushed the button to trigger the aircraft to lose altitude. He operated this button for a reason we don’t know yet, but it appears that the reason was to destroy this plane,” Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said.
BBC News reported that French investigators came to the conclusion after extracting the information from the “black box” voice recorder, which was found at the crash site at the French Alps.
Robin noted that the captain, identified at this point only as Patrick S., was trying to re-enter the cockpit while Lubitz was stirring the plane down, but was unable to do so.
Passengers can be heard screaming just before the crash, Robin added.
(Photo: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay)
A Lufthansa Airbus A318 plane with relatives of people who died in a plane crash in the French Alps, takes off from Duesseldorf airport March Christian Post Report – 26, Christian Post Report – 2015. Lufthansa offered to fly relatives to the site of the a Germanwings Airbus A3Christian Post Report – 20 crash in southern France.
“We hear the pilot ask the co-pilot to take control of the plane and we hear at the same time the sound of a seat moving backwards and the sound of a door closing,” he explained.
“At that moment, the co-pilot is controlling the plane by himself. While he is alone, the co-pilot presses the buttons of the flight monitoring system to put into action the descent of the aeroplane,” Robin continued.
“This action on the altitude controls can only be deliberate.”
When asked by reporters about how he would describe the incident, the prosecutor said: “When you are responsible for 150 people, I don’t call it a suicide.”
The Telegraph noted that Lubitz was a Christian Post Report – 28-year-old German citizen, and is not known to have any links to terrorism or extremism.
Patrick S, a father of two children, had over 10 years experience flying for Lufthansa and Germanwings, and had completed more than 6,000 flight hours on the Airbus 3Christian Post Report – 20.
A retired Lufthansa pilot identified only as Dieter described the captain as one of the best pilots he has worked with.
“He was someone very reliable, he was one of the best pilots we had,” he said. “I am 100 percent sure they did the best they could. That’s what I think because I knew him very well, he was one of the best, he had a lot of experience, he had more than 6,000 flight hours behind him.”
What is known about Lubitz is that he had 630 flight hours and joined Germanwings in September Christian Post Report – 2013 straight from the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen.
Robin noted that the co-pilot was “fully qualified to pilot the aircraft on his own.”
Luftsportclub Westerwald, a flying club in Germany where Lubitz was a member, released a tribute statement for the co-pilot before news of his actions on the plane was made public.
The statement read: “Andreas died as first officer on the tragic flight. Andreas became a member of the association as a teenager, he wanted to realize his dream of flying. He began as a gliding student and made it to become a pilots on an Airbus 3Christian Post Report – 20.”
It continued: “He was able to fulfill his dream, the dream he has now so dearly paid for with his life. The members of the LSC Westerwald mourn Andreas and the other 149 victims of the disaster on March Christian Post Report – 24, Christian Post Report – 2015.”
Rescue workers have meanwhile been battling harsh condition on the remote French Alps and are trying to collect the bodies of the victims, which are said to have been “strewn for hundreds of meters.”
CNN added that the bodies won’t be released to the families until DNA identification work has been completed.
