France plane crash: No survivors expected [Condolences to the families]

[redsn0w]

Another two interesting article about this bad story  :

It will be mandatory for two people to be in the cockpit at all times on all international and domestic flights, the Federal Government says. Authorities reviewed Australia's aviation regulations after 150 people were killed when a Germanwings plane crashed in the French Alps last week. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz has been blamed for the crash, and was alone in the cockpit when the plane slammed into the mountainside. Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the new policy would apply to aircraft with 50 or more passengers.

More at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-30/federal-government-announces-new-cockpit-safety-standards/6358474

Alps plane crash: What happened?


The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight that crashed into the French Alps sent the plane into its doomed descent "intentionally", according to French investigators. He was alone in the cockpit when he initiated the plane's dive and refused to allow the captain back through the cockpit door, they said. Speculation over the reasons for his actions has centred around the co-pilot's mental wellbeing. The German A320 Airbus flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf came down in a remote mountain valley in France on Tuesday 24 March, killing all 150 people on board.


More at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32035121

I really want to know what is happened in that day, and maybe if it is related with any passengers.

[bitgeek]

I haven't listened to the program, but going by your description alone, it seems unlikely that was the case; the pilot was apparently calm enough to breathe normally, yet he completely failed to respond to those outside who were trying to open the door - then add to that the time this whole thing lasted, and the pilot's experience.

They had a number of ideas. Some other were that the tapes weren't released, the events were instead described on the base of the tapes. It's not an actual proof.
There were also cases of Airbus pilots feeling dizzy because of fumes from leaking hydraulic fluid, and the most important thing: this plane has systems that don't allow the pilot to suddenly start diving and crash it, but maybe he knew how to override it, just like he knew how to block the door from the inside. There's definitely a lot of questions here.
They also pointed out that it's extremely rare for a pilot to go to the toilet during such a short flight and I agree with this, as I've flown over 10 times in German 320s and never seen a pilot go out during the flight.

I remember a similar situation when the plane carrying the Polish president crashed, killing everyone on board. Years have passed since that day but the questions still remain.

[Spendulus]

Why did the airlines not require their pilot's doctors to notify the airline if the pilot is unfit to fly?

Not the airline, but the FAA medical examiner, who can revoke the pilot's license.  In the case here, you had a pilot who was lying about his condition.

Likely he went to a different doctor (in Europe the doc could even have been in a different country) for the depression and medications for it, than the doctor he used in conjunction with his flight status.  Perhaps he paid cash.

In the US, his medical history would have been disqualifying with, I believe, no exceptions.

[bitcoin1992]

How do they know he took an axe to the door? It is all based on sounds. I'm sure he was hitting with anything he could find

[redsn0w]

A 'good' news :

Earlier Tuesday, Lufthansa said its insurer, Allianz, had set aside $300 million to “deal with all costs arising in connection with the crash,” Lufthansa spokeswoman Kerstin Lau said. Lufthansa also announced that the company has canceled proposed celebrations of its 60th anniversary on April 15 "out of respect for the crash victims of flight 4U9525."

“Instead of the originally planned anniversary event, Lufthansa will provide a live broadcast for its employees of the official state ceremony in the Cologne Cathedral on the 17th of April 2015, where the bereaved families and friends will gather to remember the victims.”


More at: http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-france-crash-lufthansa-pilot-depression-20150331-story.html

[Morbid]

http://82.221.129.208/a320crash.html

[Bizmark13]

How do they know he took an axe to the door? It is all based on sounds. I'm sure he was hitting with anything he could find

It was probably a guess and the sounds from the cockpit voice recorder were similar to that of an axe pounding on metal. Later news reports claim that an axe wasn't used since the only axe in the plane was actually located inside the cockpit. It has been suggested that the captain used a crowbar instead:

It is unclear what tool the captain turned to in his attempt to break the cockpit door open and save the plane, his crew and his passengers.

Boris Ogursky, a spokesman for Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, said all the company's planes have an axe, but it would have been locked in the cockpit with the co-pilot. Two aviation sources told NBC News that many commercial aircrafts have a hidden crowbar in case the crew needs to break into a bathroom for any reason.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/german-plane-crash/germanwings-pilot-patrick-sonderheimer-fought-open-locked-cockpit-n332206

[abyrnes81]

(Reuters) - A video of the final seconds aboard the Germanwings plane that crashed in France last week has been discovered, reports said on Wednesday, just hours before executives visiting the crash site dodged questions about the mental health of the pilot.

The video was found on a mobile phone belonging to one of the passengers killed on the plane which investigators say German pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew into a mountain in the French Alps, Bild newspaper reported.

The scenes seen on the video were chaotic and very wobbly, said Bild, adding screams and shouts of "My God" could be heard, indicating the passengers knew what was happening.

Prosecutor Brice Robin, who is handling the case in France, said the phones collected from the crash had yet to be analyzed and were being kept on site. France's BEA investigation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

A video : http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-france-crash-idUSKBN0MS3JI20150401

[Lorenzo]

(Reuters) - A video of the final seconds aboard the Germanwings plane that crashed in France last week has been discovered, reports said on Wednesday, just hours before executives visiting the crash site dodged questions about the mental health of the pilot.

The video was found on a mobile phone belonging to one of the passengers killed on the plane which investigators say German pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew into a mountain in the French Alps, Bild newspaper reported.

The scenes seen on the video were chaotic and very wobbly, said Bild, adding screams and shouts of "My God" could be heard, indicating the passengers knew what was happening.

Prosecutor Brice Robin, who is handling the case in France, said the phones collected from the crash had yet to be analyzed and were being kept on site. France's BEA investigation authority could not immediately be reached for comment.

A video : http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/01/us-france-crash-idUSKBN0MS3JI20150401

Well this is confusing. MSN claims that the video was deemed to be a fake:

Severe doubts have been cast on the authenticity of a video which appears to show blurred and chaotic scenes within the Germanwings airbus just before it crashed last week.

The German newspaper Bild and the French magazine Paris Match both reported that they had seen the brief video, allegedly found in a mobile telephone memory card at the crash scene.

The Marseilles prosecutor Brice Robin, who is leading a judicial investigation of the crash, said that no memory cards from mobile telephones found at the crash site had yet been analysed. A senior gendarmerie officer, Jean-Marc Menichini, said that reports of the existence of such a video, a few seconds long, were "false".

Other investigation sources suggested that a memory card might have been picked up by a rescue worker and sold to the media rather than officially declared. But they said that they thought that it was more likely that the two publications had been hoaxed...

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/germanwings-plane-crash-video-that-reveals-chaos-in-moments-before-disaster-is-a-fake-insist-investigators-into-french-alps-tragedy/ar-AAaiLHh

But I see many other news sites saying the opposite too. For example, this article was published just an hour ago and seems to support the idea that the video is real:

...On the video, which Bild described as being "indisputably authentic", a banging of metal could be heard at least three times, possibly the sound of the pilot who had been locked out of the cockpit by Lubitz trying to break through the door...

[jaysabi]

Finding evidence to support a finding of premeditation.

BERLIN (AP) — The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 appears to have researched suicide methods and cockpit door security in the days before he crashed the plane into the French Alps, killing everyone aboard, German prosecutors said Thursday.

Search terms found on a tablet computer at co-pilot Andreas Lubitz's apartment in Duesseldorf provided the first evidence that his actions may have been premeditated.

More: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prosecutors-lubitz-probed-suicide-methods-cockpit-security/ar-AAalGDv?ocid=ansnewsap11

[criptix]

Just watched german news.

right now if you fly in the eu there is no id control if you check into the airplane.
this is gonna change now, reason is that the police had great trouble of identifying the victims.

There is also more information about the co pilot.
the german police found his tablet which he used to get information about suicide and the technical aspects of security doors to the pilot cabin.

[jaysabi]

Just watched german news.

right now if you fly in the eu there is no id control if you check into the airplane.
this is gonna change now, reason is that the police had great trouble of identifying the victims.

There is also more information about the co pilot.
the german police found his tablet which he used to get information about suicide and the technical aspects of security doors to the pilot cabin.

As a co-pilot, wouldn't he know how the cockpit security door works? That seems odd he would search for that.

[Lorenzo]

It's really a catch 22 situation. If a pilot is depressed, then it's not really in their best interests to seek help and report it since it means that they will no longer be allowed to fly planes. However, if they didn't report it and kept it a secret to their employer, then they will continue to fly while depressed and without treatment which would only worsen things even further and make situations like this even more common.

Just a thought but would it not be possible to give pilots who report their mental health an equally high paying job on the ground instead? At least until their condition improves?

Just watched german news.

right now if you fly in the eu there is no id control if you check into the airplane.
this is gonna change now, reason is that the police had great trouble of identifying the victims.

There is also more information about the co pilot.
the german police found his tablet which he used to get information about suicide and the technical aspects of security doors to the pilot cabin.

As a co-pilot, wouldn't he know how the cockpit security door works? That seems odd he would search for that.

Yeah, it does seem a bit odd. However, he was a newbie pilot with just 600 hours of flying time and I doubt pilot training schools go into depth about how the security door works, how it's reinforced, etc. - i.e. information that would probably be of great interest to someone who wanted to do the things that he did.

[aniko11]

Unfortunately I know first hand that antidepressants can have horrific side effects.
http://www.cchrint.org/2015/04/01/flying-under-the-influence-germanwingscopilot-drugs/

[abyrnes81]

The second black box recovered from the crash site of a Germanwings airliner confirms that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane and even increased its speed before the Airbus A320 slammed into the French Alps, killing 150 people, French investigators said Friday.

Information from the first black box, which captured conversations in the cockpit, had confirmed Lubitz locked out his pilot, who could be heard shouting and banging on the cockpit door as the plane headed toward the mountains for almost 10 minutes.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/03/french-investigators-co-pilot-accelerated-plane-on-descent/25230771/

[Buffer Overflow]

So now we have to worry about the guys on our side as well as the terrorists.

[abyrnes81]

So now we have to worry about the guys on our side as well as the terrorists.

Yeah, everyone now can be a risk so I do not trust anyone, the world is changed and much has changed this time; slowly the world is getting worse.

[BRE]

The second black box recovered from the crash site of a Germanwings airliner confirms that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane and even increased its speed before the Airbus A320 slammed into the French Alps, killing 150 people, French investigators said Friday.
Information from the first black box, which captured conversations in the cockpit, had confirmed Lubitz locked out his pilot, who could be heard shouting and banging on the cockpit door as the plane headed toward the mountains for almost 10 minutes.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/03/french-investigators-co-pilot-accelerated-plane-on-descent/25230771/

Yes and the worst is some or maybe all passenger knows what happen, their scream and shout captured in the first black box when the pilot try to open the cockpit door.

[jaysabi]

So now we have to worry about the guys on our side as well as the terrorists.

This is a far fringe concern. People who want to commit suicide generally don't participate in mass murder in the process, and whatever concern this warrants has already been solved with all the airlines announcing no pilot will ever be in the cockpit alone anymore.

[Mt. Gox]

So now we have to worry about the guys on our side as well as the terrorists.

This is a far fringe concern. People who want to commit suicide generally don't participate in mass murder in the process, and whatever concern this warrants has already been solved with all the airlines announcing no pilot will ever be in the cockpit alone anymore.

If a pilot was truly determined to crash a plane, then I believe they still can even with the new rules in place. It might be possible to use social engineering to manipulate the other pilot into leaving the cockpit. Or they could push the other pilot out of the cockpit while they're not looking and then slam the door shut. Or as a last resort, they could simply force the plane into a stall or an uncontrollable dive during take off or landing that would be impossible to escape even with the other pilot in the cockpit.

Example of a pilot who succeeded in destroying a plane by deploying thrust reversers mid-flight:

A mentally disturbed Captain Seiji Katagiri forces the Japan Airlines Flight 350 to crash. 24 passengers are killed by the crash. He is arrested on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in deaths, but he isn't indicted due to his insanity...

...The crew consisted of 35-year old Captain Seiji Katagiri (片桐 清二 Katagiri Seiji), 33-year old First Officer Yoshifumi Ishikawa, and 48-year old flight engineer Yoshimi Ozaki. The cause of the crash was traced to Katagiri's deliberate engaging of the number 2 and 3 engine's thrust-reversers in flight, in an attempted suicide. The First Officer and Flight Engineer worked to restrain him and regain control. Despite their best efforts, the DC-8's descent could not be completely checked, and it touched down in shallow water 300 meters (980 ft) short of the runway.

Link: http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/katagiri-seiji.htm