On April 1st, a ceremony to commemorate sixteen children and two teachers who were victims of the ill-fated flight 4U9525 was held in Haltern town in the Northwest of Germany. The flag hung at half-mast in front of the church where hundreds of candles were lit during the ceremony. About 650 mourners, all dressed in black attire attended the church to pay their tributes to the victims. After having gathered together in front of the monument, erected in memory of the crash victims, the head of the German national airline spoke to the press in French to salute the professionalism of the rescue teams and investigators. "Thank you for your collaboration in these, the most difficult times. We are truly grateful". Earlier, the heads of Lufthansa, the parent company of the low-cost carrier Germanwings and its airline Germanwings visited the site of the crash to verify the video recording from inside the plane in the seconds before the tragedy in French Alps. The Airbus A320 carrying … [Read more...] about Germany commemorates students and teachers of Germanwings crash
Germanwings crash video
Why the final moments inside the Germanwings cockpit are heard and not seen
The co-pilot who intentionally crashed a Germanwings flight into a mountainside remained calm during the last 10 minutes of his life. French investigators have described the sound of even breathing on the cockpit audio preserved in the doomed flight's black-box recorder. Accounts of the crash invariably reconstruct those final moments: Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old first officer, alone on the flight deck; the captain locked outside, frantically banging on the fortified door as warning alarms sound. Lubitz doesn't speak a word before the deadly crash. All the information comes from sensitive microphones designed to capture cockpit communications, which accident investigators pair with digital data about the airplane's performance. There's no video footage from inside the cockpit of the Germanwings flight that left 150 people dead—nor is such footage recorded from any other commercial airline crash in recent years. Unlike police cruisers, school buses, ocean liners, Russian … [Read more...] about Why the final moments inside the Germanwings cockpit are heard and not seen
Co-pilot focus in crash probe intensifies hunt for data recorder
Crash investigators are rushing to find the onboard data recorder from Germanwings Flight 9525 to confirm prosecutors’ suspicions that the co-pilot steered the jet into a mountain after locking the captain out of the cockpit. Audio files from the flight deck revealed that the co-pilot began descending after the captain stepped into the cabin, then denied him re-entry, prosecutor Brice Robin said in Marseille, France. Except for his breathing, the co-pilot stayed silent until the plane slammed into a slope at full speed, Robin said. The findings from the voice recorder on the Airbus A320 suggest that the crash, the worst-ever accident for Deutsche Lufthansa AG and its Germanwings unit, was deliberate rather than due to a technical fault. The data unit, the second half of the airliner’s so-called black boxes, is important because it tracks the changes made by the crew to the controls. "The most plausible interpretation is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the door … [Read more...] about Co-pilot focus in crash probe intensifies hunt for data recorder
Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane deliberately, prosecutor says
The 28-year-old German co-pilot of the Germanwings airliner that crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 people aboard appears to have brought down the Airbus A320 with the intent to destroy it, a French prosecutor said on Thursday. Andreas Lubitz gained sole control of the aircraft after the captain left the cockpit, refused to re-open the door and appears to have operated controls, sending the plane into its fatal descent, Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said. He did this "for a reason we cannot fathom right now but which looks like intent to destroy this aircraft," Robin told a news conference in Marseille broadcast live on national TV. Describing the final 10 minutes of the passengers on board as the plane hurtled towards a mountain range, Robin said sound recordings from one of its black boxes suggested most of them would not have been aware of their fate until the very end. "Only towards the end do you hear screams," he said. "And bear in mind that death would have been … [Read more...] about Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane deliberately, prosecutor says
Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane deliberately – French prosecutor
The co-pilot of the Germanwings airliner that crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 people aboard appears to have brought the A320 Airbus down deliberately, the Marseille prosecutor said on Thursday. German Andreas Lubitz, 28, left in sole control of the Airbus A320 after the captain left the cockpit, refused to re-open the door and operated a control that sent the plane into its final, fatal descent, the prosecutor told a news conference. The French prosecutor said Lubitz was not known as a terrorist and there were no grounds to consider the crash as a terrorist incident. Recordings suggested passengers' screams began just before the final impact, he said. Earlier, a German state prosecutor had said that just one of the two pilots of the Germanwings airliner was in the cockpit at the time it went down. The statements came after the New York Times reported that "black box" recordings showed one of the pilots had left the cockpit and could not get back in before the plane … [Read more...] about Co-pilot appears to have crashed Germanwings plane deliberately – French prosecutor