The co-pilot of the Airbus A320 which crashed in the French Alps appeared to want to ‘destroy the plane’ but had no apparent links to any terrorist organisation, French prosecutors have said.
Andreas Lubitz put the plane into a descent after the captain had left the cockpit to go to the toilet, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin told reporters.
Evidence from the black box flight recorder suggests he then refused to open the cockpit door to the captain.
The captain knocked on the door and asked to be let in and there was no answer from the co-pilot. Later there are the sounds of attempts to break down the door, the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor said the cockpit voice recorder gave information from the first 30 minutes of the flight.
For the first 20 minutes the two pilots talked in a normal fashion and were as courteous as two normal pilots would be.
Then the captain is heard asking the co-pilot to take over and the sound of a chair being pushed back and a door being closed is heard.
Asked about Mr Lubitz’s ethnicity, Mr Robin said: “He was a German national and I don’t know his ethnic background.
“He is not listed as a terrorist, if that is what you are insinuating.”
Pressed on the co-pilot’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 black box recordings showed that Mr Lubitz “was breathing normally it wasn’t the breathing of someone who was struggling”.Passenger screamsSpeaking about whether the passengers realised what was happening, Mr Robin said: “I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording we only hear the screams on the last moments of the recording.”
He added: “I believe that we owe the families the transparency of what the investigation is pointing to and what is going on, we owe it to them to tell them what happened.
“The families have been informed of everything I just told you.”
It was assumed that the captain had gone to the toilet, leaving the co-pilot incharge of the plane, the prosecutor said.
Mr Robin went on: “The co-pilot uses the flight monitoring system to start the descent of the plane. This can only be done voluntarily, not automatically.
“We hear several cries from the captain asking to get in. Through the intercom system he identifies himself – but there is no answer. He knocks on the door and asks for it to be opened – but there is no answer.”
Mr Robin said that after entry to the cockpit was denied, the sound of breathing from inside the cockpit was heard and this sound carried on until the moment of impact.
“The co-pilot was still alive at this point,” Mr Robin said.
He added that there was no answer from the cockpit to communication with ground controllers or from other aircraft in the area.
The cockpit voice recorder then shows that there were alarm signals going off which indicated to all those on board the proximity of the ground.
Noises of someone trying to break down the cockpit door are then heard.
Finallythe sound of an impact is heard.
Mr Robin said the plane may have glided before the moment of impact.
He said there was no distress signal, no Mayday and no answer despite numerous calls to the plane.
Mr Robin said: “The interpretation of the cockpit voice recorder evidence is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the cockpit door to the captain.”
Following Mr Robin’s revelations a spokesman for Germanwings said: “Not in our worst nightmare could we imagine something like this happening.”
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told a press conference: “My ladies and gentlemen after the analysis of the voice recorder of our tragic flight, there has been a new tragic turn.
“We have to, and I think we speak for everyone, we have to accept that a plane was crashed on purpose presumably by the by co-pilot of the plane.
“The recording and voice recorder leave us to assume the captain left the cabin for a short period of time and could not return unfortunately.
“It seems to be true the colleague who remained denied him access back to the cockpit in order to start the fatal descent into the French Alps.
“I have to say it leaves us speechless here at Germanwings and Lufthansa, I can only repeat what I said over the last few days, we are deeply shocked, and we are not able to imagine this situation could get any worse.”
He added access to cockpits has been restricted since 9/11.
“In our industry since the events of 9/11 the access to cockpits was changed, the doors have been reinforced so that access is not possible so that the door cannot be opened even by weapons,” he said.
“When one pilot leaves the cockpit for biological reasons, he can ring a bell, there are screens to detect who this person is. If this is a colleague or someone from the crew there is a button you can press and the door will open.
“If no one reacts the door will open automatically, this can be impeded by those in the cockpit by pressing a lock lever and closing the door for five minutes.”
“The co-pilot interrupted his training for six years, I would be interested to know why.
“I cannot tell you anything about the reasons of this interruption, but I told you before that anybody interrupts the training has to do a lot of tests so the competence and fitness would be checked again.”
The evidence appears to show that, although the locked-out captain punched the emergency number into the cockpit door to gain entry, the co-pilot inside then relocked the door.
Mr Spohr said that, irrespective of all the sophisticated safety devices, “you can never exclude such an individual event”, adding “no system in the world could manage to do that”.
He added: “We can only speculate what might have been the motivation of the co-pilot. In a company that prides itself on its safety record, this is a shock. We select cockpit personnel carefully.”
Acquaintances in the German town of Montabaur, in the Rhineland-Palatinateregion of western Germany, said Mr Lubitz had showed no signs of depression whenthey saw him last autumn.
“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said a member of a glider club who watched him learn to fly.
Peter Ruecker said: “He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well. He gave off a good feeling.”
Mr Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot’s licence as a teenager and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Mr Ruecker said.
He described the co-pilot as a “rather quiet” but friendly young man.
Neighbours who had seen Lubitz grow up in Montabaur said he had showed no signs of depression when they saw him last autumn.
Paying tribute to him before the terrible news of his involvement broke, the LSC Westerwald flying club said: “Andreas died as an officer in action on the tragic flight.
“As a youth Andreas was a member of the club who had always dreamed of being a pilot. He began as a gliding plane student and succeeded in becoming pilot of an Airbus A320.
“He fulfilled his dream, a dream for which he has paid dearly with his life.”