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.
I'm no expert by any means but it's my understanding that the freezing of those tubes is believed to have started a chain of events (meaning errors) that resulted in the crash.
BS. The were looking at the screens presenting information generated by the flight computer through it’s analysis of the data it is receiving from the various flight and engine sensors. They made their control inputs based on that information. The cause of the Air France crash was pilot error which was caused by incorrect flight parameter information being given to them by.....wait for it..... the flight computer! If you don’t want to look foolish don’t attempt to explain things you don’t understand. You clearly have no idea how this system works, or the sensors involved or the screens that information is displayed on.
Yeah, they didn’t teach that in flight physiology when I took it at Embry-Riddle. Do you have a link where I can read up on it?
Lots of things start potential crashes but pilot error is accountable in over 90% of the fatal reason. In this case the initial airspeed error was fully capable of being overcome. However, the pilot used the joystick to command a pitch up attitude without any need to do so and with the need to actually pitch down. Nothing gave the pilot cause to pitch up. Nothing.
As to therm’s condemnation of the A-320 flight computer, that crash had nothing whatsoever to do with the flight computer. It was a typical airspeed indicator issue that pilot training should have allowed the pilot to overcome. Instead, he wanted to go up so he pitched up and kept the plane in a stall; trainee mistake. Every certified pilot knows that is not the proper stall recovery procedure, and the pilot had every other indication that the plane was in a stall. Again, trainee mistake, not even a rookie mistake. Even a certified rookie knows what to do and that pilot didn’t do it.
“Yeah, they didn’t teach that in flight physiology when I took it at Embry-Riddle. Do you have a link where I can read up on it?”
Go get a medical degree. Pilots don’t know everything.
To answer your question: Why do people land with their gear up? Situational awareness, or lack thereof. Surely along the way you've earned an instructor rating? Have you not ever had a student in total sensory overload who ignored everything that was going on, including your instruction? I've had several. Had one just about kill me in a Navajo one night. He would not relinquish control. I thought I was going to have to punch him.
Who said they do? You?
“The were looking at the screens presenting information generated by the flight computer through it’s analysis of the data it is receiving from the various flight and engine sensors. They made their control inputs based on that information.”
Oh, you were there? NO ONE in the cockpit made any indication that a pitch up was needed or being made until the very last seconds and then they indicated they were in trouble.
Your comments are BS. Nothing but anti flight computer bias.
I don’t with you, you biased idiot.
Has anyone mentioned the PSA1771 crash in 1987? Disgruntled employee, recently fired but still in possession of the ID to let him fly and circumvent security. Boards a plane, shoots the pilot and co-pilot and lets the plane crash. 43 total dead.
Read the history that has been reported with the A320. Go to the NTSB website and you can search the accident reports by aircraft type. It’s really easy to do. The computer thinks everything is normal because it is receiving bogus information from the sensor array. It can be in a descent and yet reports everything is normal. The inexperienced co-pilot thinks everything is normal until it isn’t. Get it? I know it’s a hard concept for someone who isn’t a pilot to understand. There isn’t any reason for you to attempt to insult me, though, other than your own ignorance. Go read the accident reports. Seriously.
And you have yet to demonstrate a single shred of evidence that those accident and incident reports are in any way relevant to this crash. Until you can do that, we all have exactly the same knowledge as it regards this crash.
The carrier I flew for before I retired offered type rate me in the A320. I declined based on the accident data.
Ahh! Finally, we get to the reason you keep insisting that reading those accident reports gave you some sort of special understanding of this crash that none of the rest of us have. After reading those reports, you made a life altering decision and if this crash were due to mechanical failure, it would validate your reasoning behind it.
You are completely vested in an outcome of mechanical failure and will continue to insist that's what happened despite a dearth of evidence pointing in that direction and a growing body of evidence proving your assumption wrong.
Why do you want me to go to the NTSB site, grab the data and present it here for you when you can go there and review it yourself without tying up FR's bandwidth with this silliness? Are you saying you are incapable of retrieving this information on your own or are you just lazy? I've told you where to look.
I'm not "completely vested" in anything, goob. I merely voiced an opinion based on my experience and what I've read about the A320, and what I've heard from A320 pilots I have worked with. I'm saying have a look at other crashes before you jump to conclusions based on cockpit audio. That's all. If you take it farther than that it's happening between your ears, not mine.
Yes, I have an Instructor rating. No, no total sensory overload experienced by any student. (Some of that overload could be the instructor's fault.)
Well, I'm at “top of descent”, have to put my computer away, dismiss Buffy, and let the co-pilot back into the cockpit.
I'll be able to get back on in about an hour if I can figure out how to land this big bird.
Cheers until then.
What you continue to prove yourself incapable of is showing the relevance of those reports to this crash or how they negate the evidence that the co-pilot took control of the plane and flew it into a mountain.
If a brand of toaster has a history of shorting out and causing fires, then I beat somebody to death with that model toaster, the shorting out problem remains real but not relevant to the case at hand.
It's okay. Take off's are optional. Landings are mandatory and will occur with or without your input.
I can’t show the relevance of reports you refuse to read and, as such are completely ignorant of their contents, goob.
Why the hell not? Are you that intellectually vacuous?
If I contend that something I read has relevance to a debate, I'm thoroughly capable of explaining that relevance whether or not the other person has read the same things. It's a basic rhetorical competency, goob.
Whatever, I hope all your dreams come true and this crash gets blamed on the flight computer. That will prove your piloty knowledge was superior to that of us who thought the crash might have something to do with the screaming pilot locked out of the cockpit by the co-pilot with a history of mental breakdowns.
I am not a lawyer and this is not a court case in which I am involved. My opinion is that he is a muzzie. I stand on that until proven unequivocally wrong. You are not required to like it or agree with me. You may disagree as you see fit. You may not question my integrity, intelligence or opinion.
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