Alone at controls, co-pilot sought to 'destroy' the plane

[ABCer]

He must have had a "psychotic" moment. I don't see how a suicide could have been planned as there is no way he could have predicted that the pilot would need a bathroom break and that he would be left in the cockpit alone.

Not necessarily, some people just wait for the right moment.

His thinking could be 'the next flight that I'm left alone, will be the one'.

Yes. Or if he was flying with this pilot for a while he could have known his habits?

[JetsetBkk]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

It would have been so much easier to understand the reason for this terrible event if the last words heard on the cockpit voice recorder were "Allahu Akbar".

But they weren't.

So the mystery continues.

[george]

UPDATE:

White House says crash not linked to terrorism
The Associated Press


7:35 p.m. (1835 GMT, 2:35 p.m. EDT)

The U.S. doesn't believe there's a link to terrorism in the Germanwings crash in France that killed all 150 people aboard the plane.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, commenting Thursday on the crash, said "based on what we know, there is not a nexus to terrorism."

French investigators believe the co-pilot barricaded himself inside the cockpit and intentionally rammed the plane into a mountainside in the French Alps. Investigators believe the pilot had left the cockpit to go to the lavatory, leaving the co-pilot at the helm, and the pilot wasn't able to get back in.

___

6:45 p.m. (1745GMT, 1:45 p.m. EDT)

Some aviation safety experts say French prosecutors' assertion that Tuesday's Germanwings crash was a deliberate act points to the possible need for a third pilot in the cockpit.

James Hall, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, says no pilot should ever be alone in the cockpit. He notes that all airliners have a cockpit "jump seat" for a third pilot. Hall investigated the deliberate crash of an EgyptAir plane into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff in 1999. All 217 people on board died.

Ewan Wilson, a pilot and author of a book theorizing that the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 last year was a deliberate act, said several murder-suicide crashes over the past 30 years were committed by pilots alone in cockpits.

___

6:30 p.m. (1730GMT, 1:30 p.m. EDT)

Many relatives of the victims in the Germanwings crash have visited an Alpine clearing in the hamlet of Le Vernet near the scene of the crash, where French authorities set up a make-shift "viewing tent" as near as possible to the treacherous terrain of the crash site. Those gathered at the tent could look in the direction where their loved ones died in Tuesday's disaster, which killed 150 people.

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said that the family of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz was also in France, but was being kept separate from the other families.

Celia Laurin, 10, who lives next to site where families gathered, handed out roses to the families, who spoke and cried together. She said it was "sad for us and for them."

___

5:50 p.m. (1650GMT, 12:50 p.m. EDT)

The local government in Duesseldorf says the most recent regular security check on the Germanwings co-pilot, conducted Jan. 27, found nothing unusual.

It says it has also checked with authorities in Bremen, where he went to flight school, and Rhineland-Palatinate state, where his hometown is, and turned up nothing from there. It says previous security checks in 2008 and 2010 also showed no issues.

The local government is responsible for checking personnel at airlines based in the region. It conducts the checks — which look for any criminal record or links to extremists — once every five years, a gap that used to be once every two years.

The Germanwings crash on Tuesday in the French Alps killed 150 people.

___

5:15 p.m. (1615GMT, 12:15 p.m. EDT)

Europe's third largest budget airline, Norwegian Air Shuttle, says it has ordered new flight regulations that say two crew members must always be present in the cockpit of a flying aircraft.

Norwegian spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh-Jacobsson says the new rules will be adopted "as soon as possible" on all commercial flights globally. She says the decision was taken after details emerged that the co-pilot of the Germanwings Flight 9525 that crashed in France on Tuesday had apparently locked himself in the cockpit. The disaster killed 150 people.

Other airlines, including Finnish national carrier Finnair, already stipulate that there must always be two crew members in the cockpit of a flying aircraft.

___

5 p.m. (1600 GMT, 12 p.m. EDT)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says news that the co-pilot is believed to have intentionally crashed the plane gives the Germanwings tragedy a "new, simply incomprehensible dimension."

Merkel said that "something like this goes beyond anything we can imagine." She underlined a pledge that German authorities will do "everything imaginable to support the investigations."

___

4:50 p.m. (1550 GMT, 11:50 a.m. EDT)

The FBI has offered any help needed to French investigators in the Germanwings crash that killed 150 people.

"We stand ready to fulfill any requests for information," FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said Thursday.

___

4:25 p.m. (1525 GMT, 11:25 a.m. EDT)

The principal of Joseph Koenig High School in Haltern, Germany, which lost 16 students and two teachers in the Germanwings crash, says the state governor called him with news that the cause "was without a doubt suicide."

Ulrich Wessel told reporters: "I gave this information to my colleagues immediately, and they were just as stunned as I was. I told them it is much, much worse than we had thought. It doesn't make the number of dead any worse, but if it had been a technical defect then measures could have been taken so that it would never happen again."

A French prosecutor says the co-pilot deliberately caused the crash which took 150 lives.

___

4:10 p.m. (1510 GMT, 11:10 a.m. EDT)

Lufthansa's chief executive, Carsten Spohr, reflected on his long experience as he reacted to news that the Germanwings crash that killed 150 had been blamed on the deliberate action of the co-pilot.

Spohr told a news conference that "no system in the world can rule out such an isolated event."

He added: "I have worked at Lufthansa as an engineer, I have worked as a pilot at Lufthansa, I have carried responsibility as a manager at Lufthansa for many, many years. Always, wherever I was, whoever my boss was, the rule was always safety is No. 1. And that this has happened to us — I can only say we are sorry."

___

4:00 p.m. (1500 GMT, 11:00 a.m. EDT)

Moroccan King Mohammed VI has sent his condolences to the family of Asmae Ouahoud El Allaoui, a 23-year-old newlywed who died in the Germanwings crash.

Allaoui married Mohamed Tehrioui, 24, Morocco on Saturday.

The couple was moving to Duesseldorf, according to the town hall of La Llagosta in northeastern Spain. It was not immediately clear whether she had dual Spanish/Moroccan nationality

___

3:45 p.m. (1445 GMT, 10:45 a.m. EDT)

A Spanish factory worker who lost two friends in the Germanwings crash says he had "a feeling of impotence, of rage" after hearing that the disaster was blamed on deliberate actions by the plane's co-pilot.

Esteban Rodriguez works for auto parts maker Delphi in Sant Cugat, a town of 85,000 near Barcelona. His friends, Rogelio Oficialdegui and Manuel Rives, were among 50 Spaniards who died in Tuesday crash, which killed 150 people in all.

Rodriguez said: "One person can't have the right to end the lives of hundreds of people and families."

___

2:40 p.m. (1340 GMT, 4:40 a.m. EDT)

The chief executive of Lufthansa says he is "stunned" by a French prosecutor's conclusion that the co-pilot of a Germanwings plane intentionally caused Tuesday's crash which killed 150 people.

Germanwings is Lufthansa's budget-price subsidiary.

Chief executive Carsten Spohr told a news conference in Cologne, Germany that "we choose our staff very, very carefully." He says the airline had no indication of why the co-pilot would have crashed the plane. He said pilots undergo yearly medical examination but that doesn't include psychological tests.

___

1:45 p.m. (1245 GMT, 8:45 a.m. EDT)

Germany's top security official says that there are "no indications of any kind of terrorist background" to the Germanwings crash, which a French prosecutor has blamed on the German co-pilot. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said German authorities checked intelligence and police databases on the day of the crash, and Lufthansa told them that regular security checks also turned up nothing untoward on the co-pilot. Tuesday's crash in the French Alps killed 150 people.

__

1:35 p.m. (1235 GMT, 8:35 a.m. EDT)

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he was "shocked by the latest details provided by investigators," who say the co-pilot of the Germanwings flight intentionally put the aircraft into a fatal dive.

In a message on his official Twitter account, Rajoy said that once again he sends "an emotional embrace to the families" of those who died in Tuesday's crash in France. The 150 victims included 50 from Spain.

___

1:20 p.m. (1220 GMT, 8:20 a.m. EDT)

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says work on identifying remains of the 150 victims from Tuesday's crash of the Germanwings flight has begun.

__

1:00 p.m. (1200 GMT, 8:00 a.m. EDT)

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says passengers on the doomed Germanwings flight could be heard screaming just before the crash.

He said the co-pilot's responses, initially courteous, became "curt" when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing of the Germanwings flight which crashed in France, killing 150 people.

He refused to give details on the pilot's religion or ethnic background. Prosecutor says German authorities were taking charge of the investigation of the co-pilot, whom he identified as Andreas Lubitz.

Robin refused to give details on the pilot's religion, saying: "I don't think it's necessarily what we should be looking for."

___

1 p.m. (1200 GMT, 8 a.m. EDT)

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says pounding could be heard on the cockpit door during the final minutes of the flight of the doomed Germanwings airliner as alarms sounded.

He said the co-pilot "voluntarily" refused to open the door, and his breathing was normal throughout the final minutes of the flight.

___

12:50 p.m. (1150 GMT, 7:50 a.m. EDT)

French prosecutor says Germanwings co-pilot appeared to want to "destroy the plane."

Prosecutor says information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but the co-pilot did not say a word once the captain left the cockpit. "It was absolute silence in the cockpit," he said.

Tuesday's crash in France killed 144 passengers and the crew of six.

___

12:45 p.m. (1145 GMT, 7:45 a.m. EDT)

French prosecutor says the co-pilot was alone at the controls of the Germanwings flight that slammed into an Alpine mountainside and "intentionally" sent the plane into the doomed descent, killing 150 people.

___

12:15 p.m. (1115 GMT, 7:15 a.m. EDT)

Duesseldorf airport says two special Lufthansa flights for relatives of the plane crash victims left for southern France Thursday morning.

The German Parliament held a minute of silence for the victims, as did schools and companies in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state where Duesseldorf is located.

___

11:40 a.m. (1040 GMT, 6:40 a.m. EDT)

A Lufthansa plane carrying 62 relatives of victims who will visit the plane crash site in the French Alps has arrived in Marseille on a flight from Barcelona.

Lufthansa says they will meet up with 14 others who decided not to fly to France and instead took an overnight bus from Barcelona provided by the airline.

The airline said the relatives will be taken together "to the closest point possible to the accident zone, taking into account the difficult access conditions." Part of the zone is closed to everyone except crash investigators and experts removing remains of the victims.

___

10:40 a.m. (0940 GMT, 5:40 a.m. EDT)

An Airbus training video shows that the A320 cockpit has safeguards in case one pilot inside becomes incapacitated while the other is outside, or if both pilots inside are unconscious. Normally, someone trying to get into the cockpit requests access and a camera feed or peephole lets the pilot decide whether to accept or specifically deny access.

If there is no response, a member of the flight crew can tap in an emergency code again requesting access. If there is still no response, the door opens automatically. If, however, the person in the cockpit denies access after the emergency request, the door remains locked for five minutes, according to the Airbus video.

___

8:55 a.m. (0755 GMT, 3:55 a.m. EDT)

Lufthansa says the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.

The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor, Lufthansa said.

___

8:20 a.m. (0720 GMT, 3:20 a.m. EDT)

An official with knowledge of the audio recordings from the Germanwings flight says one of the pilots apparently was locked out of the cockpit when the plane went down.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, told The Associated Press Thursday the details emerged from recordings recovered from the black box found among the debris of the pulverized aircraft.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-27

[Shiver]

I can at a push imagine someone wanting to end their life (physical or emotional endpoints), but even then, why take other people out without their consent? I can't imagine that extreme, it's just too far for my limited imagination.

Secondly, why would an auto-pilot piece of software allow an imminent failure?

Lastly, can someone explain this to me? "The A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry if a pilot inside is unresponsive, but the override code known to the crew does not go into effect — and indeed goes into a lockdown".

[Ayutthaya11]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

It would have been so much easier to understand the reason for this terrible event if the last words heard on the cockpit voice recorder were "Allahu Akbar".

But they weren't.

So the mystery continues.

Good point

[oldsailor35]

I'm beginning to suspect that all is not well inside the German airline industry. First, you have a group of Germanwings pilots refuse to fly their planes after this crash. Adolf Galland, they're not. And, now, the keys to a plane with 149 people on it being given over to a 28 year old just two years out of the company flight school. Soft, soft, soft. Not exactly the same sort of stuff that went into Ernst Udet, who had the decency to do himself in while alone. These Germans seem emotionally fragile, sloppy, and downright weak.

What a load of nonsense!!

So because of one nutcase you classify all German pilots as emotionally fragile??

Are you German....................................

Actually its good that the pilots did not fly.. they might have felt stressed after this accident. They lost two coworkers who they might have known well. Stressed people make mistakes.. that is something you don't want on a plane. So in a way they chose for safety.

If you loose close co worker in general it will impact you and sure you can act tough and step over it.. but if that causes you to make errors. That would be real bad.

(just speculating here on the reason but seems valid enough)

I dont want a pilot that cant deal with stress 24/7 no matter how emotional he may be.

Like that amazing QANTAS Captain who at one stage lost all 4 engines but still got them safely down.

[JetsetBkk]

UPDATE:

White House says crash not linked to terrorism

<snip>

Was it work-place violence?

[Ayutthaya11]

Alone at controls, co-pilot sought to 'destroy' the plane

LORI HINNANT, Associated Press

DAVE McHUGH, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — Ignoring the captain's frantic pounding on the door, the co-pilot of the Germanwings jet barricaded himself inside the cockpit and deliberately rammed the plane full speed into the French Alps as passengers screamed in terror, a prosecutor said Thursday.

In a split second, all 150 people aboard were dead.

Andreas Lubitz's "intention (was) to destroy this plane," Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said, laying out the horrifying conclusions French investigators reached after listening to the final minutes of Tuesday's Flight 9525 from the plane's black box voice data recorder.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the conclusions brought the tragedy to a "new, simply incomprehensible dimension."

The prosecutor said there was no indication of terrorism, though he did not say why investigators do not suspect a political motive. The inquiry is instead focusing on the co-pilot's "personal, family and professional environment" to try to determine why he did it, Robin said.

The Airbus A320 was flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf when it lost radio contact with air traffic controllers and began dropping from its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet. The prosecutor said Lubitz did not say a word as he manually set the plane on an eight-minute descent into the craggy French mountainside that pulverized the plane.

He said the German co-pilot's responses, initially courteous in the first part of the trip, became "curt" when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing.

Robin said the pilot, who has not been identified, left the cockpit when the plane reached cruising altitude, presumably to go to the lavatory. Then the 28-year-old co-pilot took control of the jet as requested.

"When he was alone, the co-pilot manipulated the buttons of the flight monitoring system to initiate the aircraft's descent," Robin said.

The pilot knocked several times "without response," the prosecutor said, adding that the cockpit door can only be blocked manually from the inside.

The co-pilot said nothing from the moment the captain left, Robin said. "It was absolute silence in the cockpit."

The A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry into the cockpit if a pilot inside is unresponsive. But the override code known to the crew does not go into effect — and indeed goes into a lockdown — if the person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry.

During the flight's final minutes, pounding could be heard on the cockpit door as the plane's instrument alarms sounded. But the co-pilot's breathing was calm, Robin said.

"You don't get the impression that there was any particular panic, because the breathing is always the same. The breathing is not panting. It's a classic, human breathing," Robin said.

No distress call ever went out from the cockpit, and the control tower's pleas for a response went unanswered.

Air traffic control cleared the area to allow the plane to make an emergency landing if needed, and asked other planes to try to make contact. The French air force scrambled a fighter jet to try to head off the crash.

Just before the plane hit the mountain, passengers' cries of terror could be heard on the voice recorder.

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

The victims' families "are having a hard time believing it," he added.

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

Lubitz's family was in France but was being kept separate from the other families, Robin said.

Helicopters shuttled back and forth form the crash site Thursday, as investigators continued retrieving remains and pieces of the plane, shattered from the high-speed impact of the crash.

The prosecutor's account prompted calls for stricter cockpit rules. Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating procedure, which was changed after the 9/11 attacks to require a flight attendant to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot.

European budget airlines Norwegian Air Shuttle and EasyJet, as well as Air Canada, announced Thursday that they were adopting new rules requiring two crew members to always be present in the cockpit.

French prosecutors' assertion that this week's air crash was a deliberate act of the co-pilot, points to the possible need for a third pilot in airline cockpits, several aviation safety experts said.

"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, referring to the "jump seats" all airliners are equipped with.

Neither the prosecutor nor Lufthansa indicated there was anything the pilot could have done to avoid the crash.

Robin would not give details on the co-pilot's religion or his ethnic background. German authorities were taking charge of the investigation into him.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that before Thursday's shocking revelations, the airline was already "appalled" by what had happened in its low-cost subsidiary.

"I could not have imagined that becoming even worse," he said in Cologne. "We choose our cockpit staff very, very carefully."

Lubitz joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly out of flight school, and had flown 630 hours. Spohr said the airline had no indication why he would have crashed the plane.

Lubitz underwent a regular security check on Jan. 27 and it found nothing untoward, and previous security checks in 2008 and 2010 also showed no issues, the local government in Duesseldorf said.

Lufthansa's chief said Lubitz started training in 2008 and there was a "several-month" gap in his training six years ago. Spohr said he couldn't say what the reason was, but after the break "he not only passed all medical tests but also his flight training, all flying tests and checks."

Robin avoided describing the crash as a suicide.

"Usually, when someone commits suicide, he is alone," he said. "When you are responsible for 150 people at the back, I don't necessarily call that a suicide."

In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances told The Associated Press that Lubitz appeared normal and happy when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilot's license.

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

Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot's license as a teenager, and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as "rather quiet" but friendly.

Lubitz's Facebook page, deleted sometime in the past two days, showed a smiling man in a dark brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The Facebook page was restored after the French prosecutor's news conference.

___

McHugh reported from Montabaur, Germany. David Rising in Berlin and Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-03-26

I am disturbing and I find this very German

[Lukecan]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

Yeah sure man islam is the one to be blamed once again, people like you were saying the same thing about the MAS flight until it was found out that the captain was an atheist.

[Ayutthaya11]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

Yeah sure man islam is the one to be blamed once again, people like you were saying the same thing about the MAS flight until it was found out that the captain was an atheist.

Just a guess

[Lukecan]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

Yeah sure man islam is the one to be blamed once again, people like you were saying the same thing about the MAS flight until it was found out that the captain was an atheist.

Just a guess

A jihadist would not crash the plane into a mountain.

They'd crash it in some important building instead.

It was a sporadic act of randomness, just like those school shootings.

[NeverSure]

Right now the American press doesn't think it was Islamic. I've been watching and combing right wing, left wing and centrist news sources who are free to speak their minds and who would scratch each others' eyeballs out for a headline.

They do say that in 2009 the perp took a break from school due to depression. I guess his mental health issues might be taboo in some countries. That's the closest they can come to a theory but they also say he passed thorough psychological exams for the airline with flying colors and hadn't evidenced any problems.

Right now it appears the act was deliberate but there's no evidence it was motivated by religion at this time.

[Docno]

I can sympathize with someone who feels so stressed out that he wants to end his own life, but how anyone can plan to take 150 men, women and especially children with him suggests that the airlines need to tighten up the psychological screening ... and ensure that a single person is never left alone in the cockpit.

As a psychologist myself who has done projects involving selection to 'sensitive' positions, I can tell you that the science has its limits. We can certainly screen out people with clear psychological problems, but there will always be people who will slip through because we are dealing with very low baseline events and our information (from tests, etc) is simply probabilistic. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the co-pilot had undergone pre-hire psychological testing (in fact, I'd expect it); but there are no guarantees with these tests.

[Ayutthaya11]

You will probably find out within a few days it was religiously motivated. My guess once again, Islam. Possible convert with extremist views.

I'm mean there are so many ways you could kill yourself without taking 150 people with you.

Also you can't exactly rule out my theory in this day and age especially when you come from a city in the world where we practically breed them almost coming off a production line by the dozen.

Yeah sure man islam is the one to be blamed once again, people like you were saying the same thing about the MAS flight until it was found out that the captain was an atheist.

Just a guess

A jihadist would not crash the plane into a mountain.

They'd crash it in some important building instead.

It was a sporadic act of randomness, just like those school shootings.

Yes but a jihadist could also take the opportunity to kill 150 innocent people

[Docno]

Silkair crash in Indonesia in 1997 crashed under similar circumstances (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185#Investigation_and_final_report).

And we still wait to learn why Malaysian Airlines MH370 went off-course before 'disappearing'

[Chicog]

Yes but a jihadist could also take the opportunity to kill 150 innocent people

There were idiots instantly blaming muslims for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Suggest you pause and wait for the facts.

[Lukecan]

Look man, the last place a jihadist would crash that plane is a mountain. There are so many interesting places to crash it, like the nou camp stadium etc. Why would he crash it into a mountain? Doesnt make sense. The purpose of a terrorist attack is to deliver your message. If he said something like Allahu Ekber prior to crashing, it would of been picked up by the CVR.

The guy was probably a lunatic, suffering from schizofphrenia or a similar illness.

[Ayutthaya11]

Look man, the last place a jihadist would crash that plane is a mountain. There are so many interesting places to crash it, like the nou camp stadium etc. Why would he crash it into a mountain? Doesnt make sense. The purpose of a terrorist attack is to deliver your message. If he said something like Allahu Ekber prior to crashing, it would of been picked up by the CVR.

The guy was probably a lunatic, suffering from schizofphrenia or a similar illness.

Anything is possible, only time will tell. Also crashing into a mountain I think the message would be to kill 150 kafirs that is if he was a jihadist

[Docno]

Quotes from OP:

• "Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz's "intention (was) to destroy this plane,"
• " Lubitz, a 28-year-old German, manually set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountain."
• "... co-pilot said nothing from the moment the commanding pilot left."
• "... the override code known to the crew does not go into effect — and indeed goes into a lockdown — if the person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry..."
• "The circumstances of the crash are likely to raise questions anew about the possibility of suicidal pilots."
• "In the 1999 crash of an EgyptAir jet off Nantucket that killed all 217 people on board, U.S. investigators found the co-pilot intentionally caused the plane to go down despite the pilot's efforts to regain control."
• "CEO Spohr said: "We choose our cockpit staff very, very carefully."
• " Lubitz had never been flagged as a terrorist and would not give details on his religion or ethnic background."

Call me heartless for not joining the RIP brigade - costs little and is worth even less.

Call me paranoid if you are more confident in your own mental condition.

But the circumstances, facts and opinions quoted above do not seem to me supporting "psychotic" version.

Also they do not seamlessly stitch together IMHO. I'm afraid I smell a rat here.

European Laws forbid disclosure of details related to ethnicity, religion etc. of this Andreas Lubitz.

He was (?) permitted not to give details of his ethnic and religious background when trained and employed (?).

Bingo! I do not like this! Whether it is true or false...

Well, his name looks classically German, so ethnicity is likely not an 'issue'. But what are you saying? That airlines should discriminate against people of certain ethnicities or faiths in their hiring??

[NeverSure]

A jihadist would not crash the plane into a mountain.

They'd crash it in some important building instead.

It was a sporadic act of randomness, just like those school shootings.

That's not necessarily true. Terror can be a way to disrupt an economy or commerce. Thus the London Train Bombing and the Pan Am Flight 103 that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland. This is another reason that terrorists often claim responsibility for an act. It's their way of exerting power while trying to disrupt.

Right now even the most right wing, anti-terrorist US press is saying they don't think it was Islamic terror. They aren't just saying they don't know, they don't think it was.

Edit: They have representatives all over Europe, and they are free to speak their minds without being PC if broadcast in the US.

Let's let the dust settle and see what the world wide sleuths may come up with.

Cheers

Edited March 26, 2015 by NeverSure

[Docno]

Interesting 2013 piece on past cases of pilot engineered crashes: http://www.ibtimes.com/pilot-suicide-when-its-captain-who-crashes-plane-1519756. Not that religion does not seem to be a key factor, as many are assuming here.

Also interesting is this quote in regard to a crash in Nambia that year: "The voice recorder shows that someone, likely the first officer, pounded on the cockpit door before the crash. There was no mayday call from the experienced captain."

Eerily similar to what seems to have happened in this instance. Looks like the aviation community didn't learn its lesson back then.

[liddelljohn]

reports now say he had a mental brealdown and depression for 6 montjhs during pilot training

[Ayutthaya11]

reports now say he had a mental brealdown and depression for 6 montjhs during pilot training

That might explain his actions but it sure as hell does not excuse them.

I've suffered depression for the past 19 years and I would not dream of taking a single life.

[Lissos]

Because they've gone through the audio, I suspect that we'll never know the 'actual' reason for what he did, except that it seems clear based on reports thus far that he activated a block for code re-entry and adjusted the height manually. So, he went out of his way to do it and didn't suddenly slump into a seizure or something. If it was simply suicide, all I can empathise with are the feelings he may have had, as I had them on and off from my late teens all the way up to my early 30s. What I cannot and never will never empathise with, is any desire to take others down with you. Even at my worst, the thought of that never once entered my mind. If this man chose to slaughter 150 people out of the inability to end his life solo, then he is total scum as far as I'm concerned. No sympathy whatsoever. Several times during the day I imagined for a moment what it must have been like for the people who realised what was going on, and were in sheer terror. It is easy to viscerally imagine what they went through until the impact, and that thought for relatives must be horrific.

[Cobra666]

The accused copilot, ironically posed at the Golden Gate Bride, a famous site for suicides:

copilot.jpg

That`s an insult to people commiting suicide. This is fullblown mass-murdering of innocent lives

[jacko45k]

He must have had a "psychotic" moment. I don't see how a suicide could have been planned as there is no way he could have predicted that the pilot would need a bathroom break and that he would be left in the cockpit alone.

Let us say he knew at some point he would be left in a cockpit alone, be it this flight or a future one.

The only clue so far seems to be his break in training.

The only future safeguard is reviewing the procedures of a sole pilot being left in a cockpit with the ability to lock the door.

[hawker9000]

Since 9/11 and their inception, I've always thought the law of "unintended consequences" would eventually apply to the armored doors. 'Can't honestly say though that scenarios like this ever occurred to me. 'Wonder if this means that flights with only 2 pilots aboard will now require them to use pee bottles...

[dotpoom]

Nobody knows what's going on inside another person's head and for what reasons.....You cannot judge how well a person is doing by his outside appearance. This is a tragedy beyond words for all the families concerned. The actions of the co-pilot suggest he was a very disturbed man indeed ...nobody knows yet why it happened but I do know that mental illness exists...same as cancer and malaria and that a sick mind is not able to "cure itself".

May all involved somehow find the strength to cope with this and maybe we could remember ALL those who died in our prayers and thoughts.

[Dannyboy666]

How many other Disasters , have been done in by the pilots, Malaysia anyone...

[NanLaew]

....

They do say that in 2009 the perp took a break from school due to depression. I guess his mental health issues might be taboo in some countries. That's the closest they can come to a theory but they also say he passed thorough psychological exams for the airline with flying colors and hadn't evidenced any problems.

....

Except for...

2:40 p.m. (1340 GMT, 4:40 a.m. EDT)

...

Chief executive Carsten Spohr told a news conference in Cologne, Germany that "we choose our staff very, very carefully." He says the airline had no indication of why the co-pilot would have crashed the plane. He said pilots undergo yearly medical examination but that doesn't include psychological tests.

Flying a commercial aircraft if a very demanding job both physically and mentally. I would have thought that the airlines would have some sort of mental assessment beyond the blood pressure, eyesight, hearing and a 'cough'.

I think I am right in saying that most big league airlines have a system of revolving in-flight 'on the job' assessments where a designated test pilot joins a flight crew to evaluate a member. I am fairly confident their brief includes some degree of mental and social appraisal. It is possible that the budget wing of any major airline may not have such a system in place, particularly if their senior crew are recruited from ranks of the 'senior' wing of the company. Or possibly disregard the issue completely due to the fact that they are mostly regional, shorter-haul operations.

Either way, a huge tragedy that appears to have been enabled by a long-standing loophole regards the minimum flight deck staffing. It took the American carriers and regulators a triple tragedy before they closed that loophole. Although it was triggered by a different terror alert, the European authorities went after the passengers with their arcane ban on certain sized liquids in hand-carry. A plane full of people is still the same plane full of people regardless of who owns the plane or whose airspace it's passing through. If only they had quietly implemented the cockpit staffing rules, we probably would not be reading about this terrible event.