Posted on 03/26/2015 6:30:57 AM PDT by COUNTrecount
The German co-pilot who deliberately flew a Germanwings flight into the French Alps has been named as Andreas Lubitz, who was aged 28. Prosecutors said information suggested he was fully conscious as the plane went down.
"The co-pilot is alone at the controls," prosecutor Brice Robin said, drawing on information gathered from the black box recorder. "He voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit to the pilot and voluntarily began the descent of the plane."
Details of Lubitz's life are still emerging, with investigators confirming he did not have any known terrorist links. According to the website of the flight club where he was a member, the co-pilot was from Montabaur in Rhineland Palatinate.
German media reports he had 630 flight hours and joined budget airline Germanwings straight out of Lufthansa Flight Training School in Bremen in September 2013. Authorities have not confirmed if he had any experience as a professional pilot prior to that.
In 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration recognized Lubitz for "meeting and exceeding" the "high educational, licensing and medical standards" established by the body, which regulates civil aviation, reports the Aviation Business Gazette.
The FAA said that the certification standards have evolved to "reduce pilot errors that lead to fatal crashes."
"Andreas became a member of the club as a youth to fulfil his dream of flying," the LSC club said in a death notice on its website.
"He fulfilled his dream, the dream he now paid for so dearly with his life," the club said, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Montabaur city mayor Gabriele Wieland, speaking to the DPA press agency, said Lubitz lived with his parents in Montabaur and also had a residence in Dusseldorf, where the Germanwings flight was heading before it crashed.
French authorities said his family had left Marseille, where a press conference was held earlier on 26 March. His Facebook page lists his interests as aviation and music.
Information from the black box recorder of the flight, which crashed on 24 March and killed 150 people, indicated Lubitz was alone in the cockpit, and intentionally started a descent while the other co-pilot was locked out.
The Airbus 320 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf hit a mountain near Barcelonette in the French Alps, after an eight-minute descent.
See post # 54.
Co-Pilot graduated Lufthansa flight training school in Bremen September 2013.
German Police shut down ISIL Mosque in Bremen December 2014.
Mosque was open during Co-pilot’s time at Bremen.
Pilot took some time off between training……
I think German Police will be looking at Mosque Manifesto to see if his name is on it….
Talk to any accident investigator. They will all tell you that with any investigation you never draw any conclusions until all the information that is retrievable has been retrieved. This is why these investigations can take years to piece together. This investigation is nowhere near that point now. Is there a suicide note? BTW, I've heard/seen it reported 3 different places this morning that the FDR was virtually destroyed and the data card was missing. I'm not the one reporting that, so don't chastise me. Check with the media.
Spoken by someone who has zero time in a cockpit. Bravo!
I spent exactly as much time in the cockpit of this flight as you did.
Your statement seems correct.
Lock: Once the button has been moved to this position, the door is locked; emergency access, the buzzer, and the keypad are inhibited for a preselected time (5 to 20 min)
I am amused at the ignorance of the comments of people who aren't pilots and have zero flight experience, though, particularly with a complex aircraft. Keep 'em coming!
How many A320 accident reports have you read? I’ve read all of them.
Your bizarre insistence on the known mechanical issues with the A320 being the cause of this crash would be like somebody blaming a drunk driving his Ford Pinto off a cliff on the rear tank explosion problem.
The A320 flaws are known by anybody who remembers the Air France crash into the Atlantic. So far, those flaws do not appear to be in any way relevant to this crash, which seems to involve a deliberate act by the co-pilot.
We know you claim to be a pilot. Congratulations. I drive a car. That doesn't mean I can determine the cause of a specific car crash from thousands of miles away, based on things I've read about the model of car involved.
But you are, sir, you are!. You and others on this thread keep insisting this was a deliberate act by the co-pilot with nothing to indicate anything of the sort other than some reported noises on the CVR. I’m telling you an inexperienced #2 unfamiliar and/or overwhelmed with the A320 could easily put the cockpit door switch in the wrong position, just as easily as they could put the autopilot in the wrong position, or get single instrument fixation. I’ve told you what has happened previously to cause A320 crashes, gave specific, easily verifiable examples and said that the circumstances here make me very suspicious that we have witnessed yet another Airbus flight computer malfunction based on reading the accident reports, along with my own flight experience. I’m also telling you that low time pilots, complex aircraft and disorientation go hand in hand. Do some research. You’re comparing a state-of-the-art flying machine to a 70’s Ford Pinto for crying out loud and I’m the one being silly? LOL! Thanks for the laugh!
Does 21,000 hours of flight time qualify me to make a few observations?
You are sticking to assumptions that rule out foul play.
You are also a A-320 hater and can’t accept “Deliberate.”
Are you a member of a pilot union? Union pilots will not tolerate the use of the term, “Pilot Error.”
“fighting to gain control?” The aircraft was controlled by the autopilot and was descending, wings level, at a constant descent rate. There was no “Fighting to gain control.
Fighting to gain control might be a proper term if the airplane had encountered a high altitude upset and was inverted or in an unusual attitude.
Many of your comments are ignorant by themselves.
Your experience as a pilot is mildly interesting, but it gives you absolutely no additional insight into the cause of this crash, however desperately you want it to add weight to your comments.
You and I both have the same evidence about this particular plane crash. It is entirely possible that everything we are hearing about this crash is a complete lie, but you have no evidence of that and the fact that you are a pilot has no bearing on the validity of the information presented so far.
I don’t recall seeing that one.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3012053/Andreas-Lubitz-Germanwings-flight-9525-French-alps-crash-French-alps-Germanwings-plane-crash-Airbus-A320-Barcelonnette.html
The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings jet locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing into a mountain to ‘destroy the plane’, it was sensationally revealed today.
French prosecutor Brice Robin gave further chilling details of the final ten minutes in the cockpit before the Airbus A320 plunged into the French Alps killing 150 people.
Revealing data extracted from the black box voice recorder, he said the co-pilot - 28-year-old German Andreas Lubitz - locked his captain out after the senior officer left the cockpit.
At that point, Lubitz used the flight managing system to put the plane into a descent, something that can only be done manually - and deliberately.
He said: ‘The intention was to destroy the plane. Death was instant. The plane hit the mountain at 700kmh (430mph).
‘I don’t think that the passengers realised what was happening until the last moments because on the recording you only hear the screams in the final seconds’
Earlier in the flight, Mr Robin said Lubitz’s responses were initially courteous, but became ‘curt’ when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing of the plane.
The captain - named by local media as German father-of-two Patrick Sonderheimer - then left the cockpit but found himself locked out when he tried to re-enter.
Mr Robin said: ‘We hear the pilot asking the co-pilot to take over and we hear the sound of a chair being pushed back and a door closing so we assume that the captain went to the toilet or something.
‘So the co-pilot is on his own, and it is while he’s on his own that the co-pilot is in charge of the plane and uses the flight management system to start the descent of the plane.
‘At this altitude, this can only be done voluntarily. We hear several shouts from the captain asking to get in, speaking through the intercom system, but there’s no answer from the cockpit.’
Audio from the recording captures Mr Sonderheimer furiously pounding on the door to no avail.
Sorry, but your hypothesis of malfunction would include aural cockpit warnings...there were NONE.
He precisely and specifically performs muslim terrorist actions. If he is not a muzzie he is still a muzzie.
Did you even read what I wrote? Fighting to gain control from the fly by wire system, not unusual attitude recovery. I made no mention of unusual attitude recovery at all. Read the NTSB/FAA accident reports. There have been several accidents and dozens of incidents reported with the A320 fly by wire system. If the system were on autopilot and the flight sensors were reporting bogus altitude or attitude information, then yes, a sustained descent could be flown by the flight computer and my not easily be corrected, particularly by an inexperienced pilot. Pilots have also reported unwanted control input from the A320 flight computer even when the autopilot was off. I am not type rated in the A320, but I am typed in the 727,737, 757 and several light jets. I have flown with pilots typed in the Airbus and I have yet to find one who likes it. This scenario has presented itself numerous times since the A3xx series was certified. If you would take the time to read the NTSB and FAA accident reports you would know that. You aren’t even considering what I’ve said. You just want a punching bag. Have a nice day!
French Prosecutors now do aircraft accident investigation?
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