The co-pilot of the Germanwings flight that crashed in the French Alps deliberately worked to destroy the plane while passengers shrieked in terror and the pilot pounded on the cockpit door, a French prosecutor says.
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‘‘This was voluntary, this was deliberate,’’ Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said. ‘‘He refused to open the cabin door in order to let the pilot back in. I repeat. He refused to let the pilot back in. He is the one who pressed the button that allowed the plane to begin descending and lose altitude.’’
The information was obtained from the cockpit voice recorder of doomed Flight 9525, which suddenly began an eight-minute descent before smashing into a rugged ravine in the French Alps on Tuesday. The data recorder for the flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, Germany, has not yet been found.
Mr Robin said the co-pilot, identified as German national Andreas Lubitz, 27, was not on a terror watch list. He said nothing during the descent, but could be heard breathing until the crash.
‘‘The co-pilot is the only one in the cockpit,’’ Mr Robin said. ‘‘While he is alone he somehow manipulated the buttons on the flight monitoring system. He was alone at the helm of this Airbus.’’
Mr Robin stressed the actions were deliberate. He said passengers could be heard screaming in fear. ‘‘We start hearing banging, someone actually trying to break the door down. That’s why the alarms were let off – because these were protocols that were put in place in case of any terror attack.’’
Mr Robin said the plane apparently glided until it crashed into the ravine, a sound heard on the voice recorder. ‘‘Again, no distress signal, zero, no ‘help me’ or SOS,’’ he said. ‘‘Nothing of this sort was received by air-traffic control.’’
The voice recorder indicated dialogue between the pilot and co-pilot was normal, Mr Robin said. The families of the victims had been informed of of the developments and were in shock.
Lufthansa said Mr Lubitz joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours. He began training in Bremen, Germany, in 2008 and later trained in Arizona.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said there was a brief interruption in Mr Lubitz’ training in 2009 but that he had completed qualifications for the job. German media outlets quoted classmates as saying Mr Lubitz interrupted his training due to ‘‘burnout’’ and ‘‘depression.’’
Mr Lubitz was included in the US Federal Aviation Administration’s database of certified pilots. ‘‘He passed all medical tests, he passed all aviation tests, he passed all checks,’’ Mr Spohr said. ‘‘He was 100 per cent able to fly without any limitations, without any reservations. His accomplishments were excellent. Nothing was noticed that wasn’t proper.’’
Officials have not identified the pilot, but multiple media outlets have identified him as Patrick Sonderheimer. He had more than 6000 hours of flying time and had been Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor.
MCT
