Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz Crashed Plane ON PURPOSE, Among 4 Shocking New Developments
March 26 2015, Updated 2:29 p.m. ET
Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz's "intentional" move to crash Flight 9525 into the French Alps leads the latest developments in the shocking story.
Crash Was Done On Purpose: Prosecutor
Andreas Lubitz's move "to destroy this plane," was "intentional," Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said Thursday, citing findings of French aviation officials who examined black box recordings of the Airbus A320's final moments. Lubitz, a 28-year-old from Germany, ignored the screaming passengers, and the pilot knocking on the door, in the horrific incident in the Barcelona-to-Duesseldorf flight, in which 150 people died. The prosecutor said that "the most plausible scenario is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit for the captain and pressed the button for the descent" from 38,000 feet. He noted, "I think the victims realized just at the last moment."
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Co-Pilot's Final Actions
Lubitz was calm and cordial in the early moments of the flight, the prosecutor said, but his mood turned "curt" during a mid-flight chat with the captain regarding the landing. When the captain went to use the restroom, Lubitz manually blocked the door and didn't acknowledge the captain's pounding when he returned. "It's obvious this co-pilot took advantage of the commander's absence," the prosecutor said. "Could he have known he would leave? It is too early to say." As he steered the plane toward a mountain, Lubitz did not say a word, Robin said, adding that there was "absolute silence in the cockpit." His breathing did not change at all, the prosecutor added. "You don't get the impression that there was any particular panic, because the breathing is always the same," he said. "The breathing is not panting. It's a classic, human breathing."
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More On Lubitz
The man responsible for taking 150 lives has never been linked to terrorism, and people that knew him said he seemed like a normal, well-adjusted individual in their dealings with him. Peter Ruecker, a glider club member who observed Lubitz's aviation training, recalled how Lubitz was "rather quiet" and "was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well ... he gave off a good feeling." Lubitz started Germanwings in September of 2013, and had 630 in-air hours to his name. Officials in Germany had begun a full investigation into his past early Thursday. A Facebook page attribute to Lubitz was deleted after the crash, then brought back online.
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Airline's Reaction
Carsten Spohr, the CEO of Germanwings-parent company Lufthansa, said on behalf of the airline: "We choose our cockpit staff very, very carefully." Spohr said Lufthansa officials were "appalled" at the developments, and Spohr admitted he "could not have imagined news about the crash becoming even worse." The CEO said that the airline knew of no indicators of strange behavior from Lubitz, noting that psychological tests were not apart of the medical exams the company gave pilots annually.
