The Germanwings airplane appears to have been crashed deliberately:
BREAKING NEWS: French prosecutor: Germanwings co-pilot appeared to want to ‘destroy the plane,’ the Associated Press reports.
An official who knows about the audio recordings from the recovered cockpit voice recorder of the Germanwings flight that slammed into the Alps said Thursday one of the pilots was apparently locked out of the cockpit when the plane went down.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, told the Associated Press that this important detail was gleaned from studying data from the plane’s cockpit voice recorder, which was damaged, but recovered by emergency responders Wednesday.
Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, would not confirm nor deny the reports, the AP reported.
The New York Times quoted an unidentified investigator Thursday as saying the audio depicts someone knocking with increasing urgency — and force — on the cockpit door. The Times quoted the source as saying: “And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”
It’s not hard to tell who was the pilot and who was the co-pilot who appears to have intentionally crashed the plane:
Lufthansa, the German pilots’ union and the Lufthansa flight training school in Bremen where the pilots trained are not making any comment or giving out names. They have, however, given information on the pilot and co-pilot and their experience. But German media has identified the men as as Patrick S, a father to two children. Bild newspaper said he flew for over ten years for Lufthansa and Germanwings and had completed more than 6,000 flight hours on the Airbus 320.
The paper named the First Officer as Andreas L. He was “young”. He was from Montabaur, in Rhineland-Palatinate. He had 630 flight hours. He joined Germanwings in September 2013 straight from the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen.
Lufthansa said both pilots were trained at the Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen. The captain had over 6,000 flight hours’ experience and joined Germanwings in May 2014. Previously he was a pilot with Lufthansa and Condor, a Lufthansa partner airline.
It’s a good thing his name was Andreas L. and not Mohammed L. or you might see air travel come to a near-complete halt. Although if it turns out that he was a convert, you might see a noticeable slow-down anyhow.
UPDATE: Prosecutor identifies jet crash co-pilot as Andreas Lubitz: AFP
UPDATE 2: From Zerohedge:
“At this moment, in light of investigation, the interpretation we can give at this time is that the co-pilot through voluntary abstention refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude,” the prosecutor, Brice Robin, said. He said it appeared that the co-pilot’s intention had been “to destroy the aircraft.” He said that the voice recorder showed that the co-pilot had been breathing until before the moment of impact, suggesting that he was conscious and deliberate in his actions. He said that his inquiry had shown that the crash was intentional.
UPDATE 3: I suspect Omega rage. Here is why.