Thursday 26 March 2015

What We Know About German Crash Co-Pilot

The co-pilot of Flight 9525 which crashed in the French Alps wanted to "destroy the plane", a prosecutor has said.
Andreas Lubitz, who was 28 and a German national, is understood to have joined the Germanwings airline in 2013 straight after training.
And according to members of the glider club in his hometown of Montabaur, where Mr Lubitz had learned to fly as a teenager, he was happy in his job with the budget airline.
They also said he had been upbeat when he returned to the club in the autumn to renew his glider licence.
Club member Peter Ruecker said: "He has happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well."
Klaus Radke, the club's chairman, said he did not believe the conclusion of Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, that Mr Lubitz had "intentionally" put the Airbus A320 into the disastrous descent, after locking the pilot out of the cockpit.
"I don't see how anyone can draw such conclusions before the investigation is completed," he said.
The curtains were drawn at the home thought to belong to his parents' in the town, which lies about 40 miles northwest of Frankfurt. Four police cars were parked outside.
It is also reported Mr Lubitz had been included by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on its database to show he had met or exceeded its pilot certification standards, which aim to "reduce pilot errors that lead to fatal crashes".
The certfication is seen as the difference between "a safe flight and one that ends in tragedy".
Mr Robin said Mr Lubitz had never been flagged as a terrorist.
And when pressed over Mr Lubitz's religion, he said: "I don't think this is where this lies. I don't think we will get any answers there."
Mr Robin said the plane's black box recordings showed Mr Lubitz "was breathing normally, it wasn't the breathing of someone who was struggling".
The passenger plane crashed on Tuesday en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, killing all 150 people on board, including three Britons.
Civil Aviation Authority has said as part of the European Aviation Safety Agency medical checks of fitness to fly, pilots will be asked questions to gauge their mental health.
If there are concerns about an individual's state of mind they will be referred for a more in depth assessment.
Carsten Spohr, chief executive of Lufthansa which owns Germanwings, said he is "stunned" at the claim made against the co-pilot.
He said: "We choose our staff very, very carefully."
Pilots underwent yearly medical examinations but this did not include psychological tests, he said.
Although rare, there have been previous instances of suspected pilot suicide.
The most infamous likely but disputed cases of pilot suicide was the 1997 Silk Air crash in Indonesia, in which 104 people died.
A US-led investigation concluded it had been caused deliberately, probably by the captain who had serious personal problems.
A Mozambique Airlines plane crash that killed 33 people in Namibia in 2013 is also believed to have been a case of pilot suicide.

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