A French prosecutor has issued a statement that the co-pilot of Germanwings 9525, Andreas Lubitz, 28, locked out the pilot of the plane and then intentionally crashed the plane in the French Alps. The conclusion adds a new horrific detail to an already horrific crash. It was not an accident according to a review of the record from the black box found at the crash site.
The cockpit voice recorder revealed the pilot politely knocking to be allowed back into the cockpit and then frantically banging on the door as Lubitz directed the plane into the ground. Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said that Lubitz “wanted to destroy this plane.” He killed 150 passengers and crew, who can be heard in the background screaming in terror. New reports indicate that there may have been issues in the past with regard to depression.
Germanwings, a low-budget carrier operated by Lufthansa, will likely face litigation over the crash and this adds a new issue. Companies will often offer a “rogue employee” defense of an employee acting outside the scope of their employment or clearly against the rules and wishes of the employer. This would clearly appear to fit since this is a senseless criminal act. However, there will remain the question of whether the airline had any indication or should have uncovered the type of mental imbalance that would lead to such an suicidal and murderous act.
Source: WSJ
Paul C. Schulte says:
po – at least I didn’t move my molester into the White House like Obama did. CAIR has an office there now. And nice deflection. Do they know you are making them out to be pedophiles. Is that the new tactic?
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Paul, Paul, Paul…are you so bored out your own life that you would seriously pen the like of that above?
Cair has an office at the White House? We now know where you get your “news”.
BFM
By we, I mean the general sphere, not this localized one. I mean the media and those empowered/invited to speak into a microphone, any microphone.
The facts are that whenever a violent act is committed where the suspect is of arabic name or origin, the media’ s waiting to know the facts is expressed in the inquiring on whether it was a terrorist act. Either they say it is or they wonder IF it is, but either way, the word terrorist/ism features prominently in any headline or analysis.
In contrast, when Islamic centers are blown up here and in Europe, where it is apparent that the culprit is not muslim, there is no mention of the word terrorism.
If you don’t have the time to research it, make it a point to keep an eye on it from now on, you’ll be surprised at how prevalent it is.
po – you are the one who made CAIR out to be pedophiles. And I am not the one who gave them an office in the White House. BTW, I do not think the JDL has an office in the White House.
“a difference in the reporting if the co-pilot had been Arab or Muslim”
Meh.
If the West gets a few years without Muslims killing people in large numbers, then maybe they can get back the benefit of the doubt.
By the way, a report yesterday said he deleted his facebook account two days before the crash.
So, po, do you know what his religion was? As far as I can tell, there has been no mention of his religious background. More specifically, when questioned, the authorities refused to answer the question, claiming that it was irrelevant.
You appear to have information that has not been released to the public.
There is no equivalent to jihad in either Christianity or Judaism. Your religion of peace makes people terrified to get in a plane piloted by a Muslim. Just the facts. People would be just as terrified to get in a plane piloted by a sick, demented person with a death wish. Both a strangely similar.
@Po: “were the pilot an Arab, we would NOT wait to know his reasons before calling the act terrorism.”
We don’t really know what the reaction would have been. But I don’t think could go that far.
But I do think there might well have been a difference in the reporting if the co-pilot had been Arab or Muslim. In this particular case reports seem to have held out the possibility of a medical emergency until that alternative seems to have been completely eliminated. And now the motivation has (mostly) moved on to considerations of suicide.
If the the co-pilot were Arab or Muslim, my guess is that talking heads would be talking less about suicide and more about political, social, or religious motivation with the implication of terrorism.
I think that is the issue you are getting at. In my view your characterization goes too far. But we are talking about a difference of degree – in a sense we see the same thing.
po – at least I didn’t move my molester into the White House like Obama did. CAIR has an office there now. And nice deflection. Do they know you are making them out to be pedophiles. Is that the new tactic?
It would be useful to know what the voice recorder picked up from the pilot and co-pilot in a so-called “raising of voices” before the pilot stepped out to use the bathroom. My first question is why a flight attendant was not called into the cockpit to be the second person there, as allegedly universally required, when the pilot had to leave. Since the cockpit door locks automatically when closed, I find it disconcerting for media to say the co-pilot “locked out” the pilot. No, he didn’t answer the door when the pilot knocked then banged on it. But was his not responding intentional or unintentional? Since we haven’t heard what was on the voice recorder, how can we know that the plane didn’t crash because some physical impairment, e.g. heart attack, left the co-pilot incapacitated. Maybe that is a long shot, especially at his tender age of 28, but I really dislike what appears to be jumping to conclusions that the co-pilot “intended” to crash the plane. I hate that the 24/7 media outlets feel they have to keep dramatic stories going by lots of speculation to keep up with pass the competition.
DrSigne, they have 20 minutes up until the crash. The US has the two person requirement, but Europe does not. Breathing is heard up until the crash, so nobody was incapacitated. You may want to read the following report:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11496066/Andreas-Lubitz-and-Patrick-S-What-do-we-know-about-the-pilots-on-Germanwings-flight-4U9525.html
Professor Turley:
You earlier tried to represent our group of Pilots a few months ago during the Hobby Lobby event and now
look what has happened!
I consider this email confidential, since I have sent this to certain Federal Agents at the CIA and FBI.
Please Scroll down and read to the very end! I am on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. I believe that
Lew Tetlow informed you of the fact that many of our Pilots and Flight Attendants were forced to
commit suicide over the years due to the earlier embezzlement of our Pensions by US Airways/US Air, or being forced to
retire at 60! Now they have raised the pilot flying age to 67 in several nations. This pilot has
little or no experience that you are talking about this morning (see FAA license below). Do you want
me to buy a full page in the WSJ and bring this matter up to the so called judges that heard our case?
These young pilots were trained in Phoenix, AZ where the US Airways HQ as located. These German’s had
to have heard the sleaze going on at both America West, American, Frontier and US Airways, etc.
Private long range jet sales took off the morning since CEO’s don’t want their executives flying with pilots they don’t know.
Thank you for reviewing this matter.
Stephen L. Avery, Indianapolis, IN 46236 (317) 650-8911
The co-pilot, 28-year-old German national Andreas Lubitz, had “interrupted” his training for several months and then completed it, which is not unusual,
His U.S. Pilot Lic.
ANDREAS LUBITZ Date of Issue: 1/6/2012 Certificate: PRIVATE PILOT(FOREIGN BASED) Print Ratings: PRIVATE PILOT (Foreign Based) AIRPLANE SINGLE ENGINE LAND GLIDER
Limits: ENGLISH PROFICIENT. ISSUED ON BASIS OF AND VALID ONLY WHEN ACCOMPANIED BY GERMANY PILOT LICENSE NUMBER(S) 27788 9460. ALL LIMITATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS ON THE GERMANY PILOT LICENSE APPLY.
From: Stephen L Avery [ mailto:stephenlavery3@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:40 AM To: Subject: FW: No Subject
Brian and or Dan: My thoughts about the crash in the ALPS. Someone might want to see if someone were holding a member of his family to force him into doing this!
Subject: No Subject
XXXXXXX: There is a severe shortage of high time pilots here in the USA whether they want to admit it or not. I was a Reserve pilot all of my career for Piedmont, US Air and US Airways. I chose flying Int’l since it paid more and kept me out of the intense poverty arena, that most of our junior pilots had to face for many years. The old pilots received millions, no “B” Scale, they received their lump sum, rarely had to be on Reserve. USELESS (US Airways and US Air) as I called them would allow several Captain friends fly cherry picked trips together on European flights, which could have been a death wish, since many were weak and the Senior First Officers kept them always out of trouble. My guess is the kid that took the plane down was into poverty going from being a flight attendant to a pilot and back and forth. Shortage of pay (always), No benefits, no insurance, back and forth to training, etc. etc. I posted a list of what caused the plane to go down yesterday on Linked In and hit the reason 9 hours before it was released: One of the pilots locked the other pilot out of the cockpit, hit VS down and or Approach buttons and homed in on where he was going to hit (the ground) without going left and or right. He must have had a lot going on to make him do this!! If I were Interpol I would be looking to see if someone had any member (s) of his family held hostage someplace to force him to do this! Sad
I posted the below message on Twitter over 22 hours ago well before it was announced that the Co-Pilot/Captain had intentionally killed everyone:
Stephen L Avery @stephenlavery3 . 22h 22 hours ago
Cockpit Implosion/Rapid Decomp, No O2, gassed, out of fuel, pilots shot,1 pilot locked the other 1 out-took it down via v/s-App Mode & or HJ
V/S means vertical descent rate up and or down mode. He could spool the button down to exactly how many feet a minute that he wanted to go down/descend, he also must have hit the heading select button which would cause him to go straight forever (he could have moved it to go left and or right but opted to go straight into the mountain). Was he (Co-Pilot) Jewish/Muslim, was he married to a Muslim wife or was he gay? Did someone threaten him about something or does a group have someone held as a hostage? Just saying.The Pilot SLA
More
Stephen Avery (317) 650-8911 No need to reply! Selling jets now to make ends meet on LinkedIN.
@Aridog: “.Go back to the 3 man cockpit crew and allow only one at a time to leave the cockpit for any reason. ”
Talking heads on CNN said that it is common US practice that two are always required on the flight deck. If a pilot leaves then one of the flight crew must come forward to be present with the other pilot at the controls.
Don’t know if that is true – but that does address the issue you raised. At the time of broadcast no one on the program knew what European regulations required. Whatever the regulations, it seems clear now there was only on on the flight deck in this case.
This might be a lone crazy pilot guy. But ISIS will claim it was one of their guys for publicity stunt. Lufthansa is going to pay big time for this.
I’ve been following this story. It is unbelievable that someone like this could be put into a position to destroy all these people.
I have some doubts about this finding since it is way too early to say what happened since we do not have the FDR recordings available. There are other scenarios which could account for the readings from the CVR. The co-pilot appears to have very little experience and is way below that required of US pilots. The Airbus has a bad habit of taking control away from the pilots and doing its own thing. It is not inconceivable that the plane went into a dive on its own with failure of the Air data computer and it requires the pilots to pull the circuit breakers on TWO of the ADCs to put the plane into alternate law and enable the pilots to take manual control. It is entirely possible from what I have read from other pilots who have a lot of experience with this plane that the pilot panicked and got his head up and locked when he found he had no control over it. We need a lot more information than what is currently available.
I am somewhat surprised that the airline went to the door arrangement with locks and an override. In my airline after the new doors were installed, we had the requirement that a flight attendant sit in the cockpit when one of the pilots was outside using the head or for some other reason. Seems like this needs to be the procedure from now on. I have little faith in security “professionals” and engineers who think that they can do better than what flight crews recommend. That is my main problem with the Airbus which is why I did not apply to JetBlue when they started up because I did not like the plane since it is all fly by wire.
I would very much like to hear/read Chuck Stanley’s views on this incident. I am untutored vis a vis “aviation” but Mr Stanley is certainly not…his remarkr would be be highly worth consideration in this affair.
Hey Mr Stanley, are you out there today. 🙂
Footnote: I commented elsewhere on his qualifications, but I doubt he reads that blog. So I summarize my untutored remarks there here:
I’d be interested in Chuck Stanley’s view point on this. My “untutored” view is that there should always be no less than two pilots in the cockpit.
Many years ago the airlines argued that flight engineers (usually with some pilot qualifications) were unnecessary due to the automation available then and more so today. Wrong answer, guys. Either have 3 in the cockpit or provide the 2 with pee containers for emergency urges…and not allow them to leave the cockpit. I admit my view is untutored…I am not a pilot.
Otherwise….Go back to the 3 man cockpit crew and allow only one at a time to leave the cockpit for any reason.
Another idea might be to have ATC’s dedicated to watching flight paths between airports that could take over control ala’ drone technology if some thing aberrant occurred and take over was necessary….especially if no verbal response or communication came from the plane itself. A problem with that might be controlling who had the keys to do so, requiring at least two to do the job for any given flight, and whether they could be hacked.
BTW Po …it is a terrorist act no matter who does it…we don’t all think it is only “Arabs”…and you skipped the Persians, Pakistanis, etc. IIRC Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols were not Arab, Persian or Muslim. Just murderous POS’s.
From a litigation standpoint, I think they are going to have to defend all of it. If the pilot was aware the co-pilot was hinkey he should have left him alone at the controls. I think we are going to see a lot more about this co-pilot in the days to come.
po – at this point we don’t know exactly what it is, just at we don’t know the details on Malaysia Airlines. Nice to see that CAIR jumped right on this.
My point exactly, Hank. Again, were the pilot an Arab, we would NOT wait to know his reasons before calling the act terrorism. As if terrorism is inherently Arab.
This is murder-suicide, at least according to the facts we know now. Terrorism is a political act, and there’s no indication of that right now. It is, however, terrifying.
The other way around, ID, if he were Arab, then they would have called it terrorism already.
It will be interesting to see what the Bundespolizei digs up about the background of this guy. Seems to me that if it were terrorism, we would have heard something by now.
So, is it terrorism?
Or is it only terrorism if Arabs do it?