Alps crash now said intentional

Evidence points to co-pilot

Rescue workers search the debris of the Germanwings jetliner at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France.
Rescue workers search the debris of the Germanwings jetliner at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France.

PARIS -- The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 deliberately crashed the aircraft, French officials said Thursday, pointing to voice recorder evidence that he had locked the captain out of the cockpit, ignored his pleas for re-entry and steered down into the French Alps as passengers were heard screaming.

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AP

French police officers hold (from left) British, German, Spanish and U.S. flags representing the victims of Tuesday’s airplane crash in the French Alps as family members attend a gathering Thursday in Le Vernet.

The assertions instantly changed the nature of Tuesday's crash into a wide-ranging criminal investigation that focused on the co-pilot, a 27-year-old German with no obvious reason to commit mass murder, officials said.

In Marseille, the chief prosecutor handling the criminal investigation, Brice Robin, said, "At this moment, in light of investigation, the interpretation we can give at this time is that the co-pilot through voluntary abstention refused to open the door of the cockpit to the commander, and activated the button that commands the loss of altitude."

Robin said it appeared the intention of the co-pilot, identified as Andreas Lubitz, had been "to destroy the aircraft."

He said the voice recorder showed the co-pilot was breathing until before the moment of impact, suggesting he was conscious and deliberate in downing the plane and killing 144 passengers and five other crew members Tuesday.

Search teams continued to scour the rugged terrain of the French Alps for clues Thursday, and several other issues remained unclear, including the identity of the captain and why he had left the cockpit of the Airbus A320.

The inquiry shows that the crash was intentional, Robin said, but there was no indication that it was a terrorist attack, and Lubitz was not known to law enforcement officials.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said security officials had checked their records after Tuesday's crash and found no indication that anyone on board had links to terrorism.

An investigation into the background of Lubitz, who was from the German town of Montabaur, was underway.

Flight 9525 was headed to Duesseldorf, Germany, from Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday morning when it descended and slammed into the French Alps.

The French prosecutor said the authorities had a full transcript of the final 30 minutes of the voice recorder.

"During the first 20 minutes, the pilots talk normally," Robin said, saying they spoke in a "cheerful" and "courteous" way. "There is nothing abnormal happening," he said.

The prosecutor said the transcript showed that the captain was preparing a briefing for landing in Duesseldorf. The co-pilot's answer, the prosecutor said, was "laconic."

The commanding pilot then asked the co-pilot to take over, and the noise of a seat backing up and a door closing could be heard.

"At this stage, the co-pilot is in control, alone," the prosecutor said. "It is when he is alone that the co-pilot manipulates the flight monitoring system to activate the descent of the plane."

The control the co-pilot activated requires several turns, Robin said, and it could not have been turned to such a low altitude accidentally.

The captain was then heard pleading to get back into the cockpit, but the co-pilot did not react, Robin said.

"You can hear the commanding pilot ask for access to the cockpit several times," the prosecutor said. "He identifies himself, but the co-pilot does not provide any answer."

"You can hear human breathing in the cockpit up until the moment of impact," he said, adding that the breathing did not indicate Lubitz was having any health problem such as a heart attack.

During the descent, Robin said, air traffic controllers repeatedly tried to contact the aircraft but received no response. Passengers could be heard just before the crash, he said.

"The victims realized just at the last moment," Robin said. "We can hear them screaming."

Their families "are having a hard time believing it," he said, after briefing some of them in Marseille.

Many victims' relatives visited an Alpine clearing Thursday where French authorities set up a viewing tent for family members to look toward the site of the crash, in an area so steep and treacherous that it can only be reached by a long journey on foot or rappelling from a helicopter.

The victims of the crash included many Germans and Spaniards, including 16 high school students and two teachers who were returning from an exchange program. Other victims included citizens of Britain, Colombia, Iran, Israel and the United States, among others.

About the co-pilot

Lubitz never appeared anything but thrilled to have landed a pilot's job with Germanwings, according to members of his hometown flight club in Montabaur, where he learned to fly and had renewed his glider license last fall.

"He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well," said longtime club member Peter Ruecker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly. "He was very happy. He gave off a good feeling."

Club chairman Klaus Radke said he rejects the prosecutors' conclusion that Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane.

"I don't see how anyone can draw such conclusions before the investigation is completed," he said.

Lubitz had been hired by Germanwings in September 2013 and was a fully licensed air transport pilot, said Carsten Spohr, the chief executive officer of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings. At the time of the crash, Lubitz had accumulated 630 hours of flight experience.

"We are horrified that something of this nature could have taken place," said Spohr, a former A320 pilot, at a news conference in Cologne, Germany. "It is the worst nightmare that anyone can have in our company."

Spohr said staff members of Lufthansa receive psychological and flight training. There was an interruption in Lubitz's training that lasted "a few months," he said, but he did not know why.

If there were a medical explanation for it, Spohr said, that information would not be available because of medical secrecy rules in Germany. However, he said Lubitz had passed his medical and psychological tests "with flying colors."

When Spohr was asked whether the co-pilot had committed suicide, he replied. "I am not a legal expert." He then added, "But when one person is responsible for 150 lives, it is more than suicide."

Spohr said the company would review its screening procedures for pilots, but he emphasized he had full confidence in the company's current policies.

Stefan Schaffrath, an Airbus spokesman, said Thursday that in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Airbus had upgraded the reinforcements of cockpit doors in compliance with international regulations.

According to an Airbus video, the cockpit door is locked by default when closed. But when a pilot specifically wants to bar access to someone outside, he can move the toggle to a position marked "locked," which illuminates a red light on a numeric code pad outside. That disables the door, keypad and the door buzzer for five minutes.

The doors can then be opened only if someone inside the cockpit overrides the lock command. After the five minutes have passed, a crew member outside the cockpit could enter an emergency code on the keypad to gain entry.

Spohr said Lufthansa allows its pilots to leave the cockpit once cruising altitude has been reached, and that the captain had waited until that phase of the flight before heading into the main cabin.

Dominique Fouda, a spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency in Cologne, said there was no regulatory requirement in Europe for a cabin crew member to be present in the cockpit when one of the pilots leaves for "physiological reasons."

Aviation safety experts said the standards in the United States were different.

The U.S. rules, which were changed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, require two qualified crew members in the cockpit at all times. If a pilot wants to leave, a flight attendant or relief pilot must enter, lock the door and stay until the pilot returns, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Canada and Germany's biggest airlines, including Lufthansa and Air Berlin, as well as low-cost European carriers easyJet and Norwegian Air Shuttle announced new rules Thursday requiring two crew members to always be present.

Some experts said even two isn't enough, and called for rules to require three.

"The flight deck is capable of accommodating three pilots and there shouldn't ever be a situation where there is only one person in the cockpit," said James Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Others questioned the wisdom of sealing off the cockpit at all.

"The knee-jerk reaction to the events of 9/11 with the ill-thought reinforced cockpit door has had catastrophic consequences," said Philip Baum, London-based editor of the trade magazine Aviation Security International.

Information for this article was contributed by Nicola Clark, Dan Bilefsky, Aurelien Breeden, Alison Smale and Raphael Minder of The New York Times; by Angela Charlton, David McHugh, Greg Keller, David Rising, Kirsten Grieshaber, Alan Clendenning, Danica Kirka, Lori Hinnant, Thomas Adamson, Sylvie Corbet, Philippe Sotto, Gier Moulson, Frank Jordans, Dorothee Thiesing, Raphael Satter and Jim Kuhnhenn of The Associated Press; and by Andrea Rothman, Mary Schlangenstein and Michael Sasso of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 03/27/2015

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