According to new reports based on evidence gathered so far by crash
investigators, one of the two pilots flying the ill-fated Germanwings
flight was locked
out of the cockpit before the aircraft crashed into a remote region of
the French Alps on Tuesday March 24th. Investigators said evidence taken
from the cockpit voice recorder indicated that one pilot desperately
tried to smash down the cockpit door after first knocking lightly on the
door and not getting an answer.
This indicates that just one of the two pilots on board was flying
the plane - and that the second one became panicked after he was unable to
get back into the cockpit. Read full story after the cut...
A
senior French military official involved in the investigation described
a “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the
early part of the flight from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany.
Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and
could not re-enter.
“The
guy outside is knocking lightly on the door, and there is no answer,”
the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger, and no
answer. There is never an answer.”
He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”
While
the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading to
the Germanwings crash on Tuesday morning, it also left many questions
unanswered.
“We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out,” said the
official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was
continuing. “But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the
other pilot is alone and does not open the door.”
The
data from the voice recorder seems only to deepen the mystery
surrounding the crash and provides no indication of the condition or
activity of the pilot who remained in the cockpit. The descent from
38,000 feet over about 10 minutes was alarming but still gradual enough
to indicate that the twin-engine Airbus
A320 had not been damaged catastrophically. At no point during the
descent was there any communication from the cockpit to air traffic
controllers or any other signal of an emergency.
When
the plane plowed into craggy mountains northeast of Nice, it was
traveling with enough speed that it was all but pulverized, killing the
144 passengers and crew of six and leaving few clues.
The
French aviation authorities have made public very little, officially,
about the nature of the information that has been recovered from the
audio recording, and it was not clear whether it was complete. France’s
Bureau of Investigations and Analyses confirmed only that human voices
and other cockpit sounds had been detected and would be subjected to
detailed analysis.
Asked
about the new evidence revealed in the cockpit recordings, Martine del
Bono, a bureau spokeswoman, declined to comment. “Our teams continue to
work on analyzing the CVR,” she said, referring to the cockpit voice
recorder. “As soon as we have accurate information we intend to hold a
press conference.”
Meanwhile,
prosecutors in Marseille, who have been tasked with a separate criminal
inquiry into the crash, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor, was due to meet Thursday morning
with the families of the crash victims.
At
the crash site, a senior official working on the investigation said,
workers found the casing of the plane’s other so-called black box, the
flight data recorder, but the memory card containing data on the plane’s
altitude, speed, location and condition was not inside, apparently
having been thrown loose or destroyed by the impact.
The flight’s trajectory ahead of the crash also left many unanswered questions.
Rémi
Jouty, the director of the Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, said
at a news conference that the plane took off around 10 a.m. local time
from Barcelona and that the last message sent from the pilot to air
traffic controllers had been at 10:30 a.m., which indicated that the
plane was proceeding on course.
But
minutes later, the plane inexplicably began to descend, Mr. Jouty said.
At 10:40 and 47 seconds, the plane reported its last radar position, at
an altitude of 6,175 feet. “The radar could follow the plane until the
point of impact,” he said.
Mr.
Jouty said the plane slammed into a mountainside and disintegrated,
scattering debris over a wide area, and making it difficult to analyze
what had happened.
It
often takes months or even years to determine the causes of plane
crashes, but a little more than a year after the disappearance of a
Malaysian airlines jetliner that has never been found, the loss of the
Germanwings flight is shaping up to be particularly perplexing to
investigators.
One
of the main questions is why the pilots did not communicate with air
traffic controllers as the plane began its unusual descent, suggesting
that the pilots or the plane’s automated systems may have been trying to
maintain control of the aircraft as it lost altitude.
One of the two pilots on the doomed Germanwings flight was apparently
locked out of the cockpit before the plane crashed in the French Alps.
Cockpit
recordings recovered from the site of the crash that killed all 150
people on board indicated one of the seats was pushed back and the door
opened and closed.
Knocking can then be heard, said a source
close to the investigation, adding "there was no more conversation from
that point until the crash".
Rescue workers at the plane crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France. Photo / AP The source said an alarm indicating the proximity to the
ground could be heard before Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to
Duesseldorf crashed in remote terrain after an unexplained eight-minute
descent in mid-flight.
No distress signal was sent from the Airbus A320 and the crew
failed to respond to ground control's desperate attempts to make
contact.
The cockpit recording of Tuesday's flight showed the
pilots speaking normally in German at the start of the flight, the
source said, adding that it could not be determined if it was the
captain or the first officer who left the cockpit.
The New York
Times cited a senior military official involved in the investigation as
saying the black box data indicated one pilot was locked out and tried
unsuccessfully to smash his way back in.
Photos of the mangled
black box retrieved at the site showed its metal casing torn and
twisted. The casing of a second black box, the flight data recorder, has
been found but not the device itself.
Investigators have said
the plane was still flying when it smashed into the remote mountainside,
with the force of the impact leaving only small pieces of debris
scattered over a wide area.
A mountain guide who got near the crash site said he was unable to make out recognisable body parts.
"It's
incredible. An Airbus is enormous. When you arrive and there's nothing
there ... it's very shocking," said the guide, who did not wish to be
identified.
A French army helicopter heads to the Germanwings flight crash site. Photo / AP The crash site is at about 1500 metres altitude and accessible only by helicopter or an arduous hike on foot.
Arrangements
were being made for the families of the victims, at least 51 of whom
were Spaniards and at least 72 Germans, to gather near the crash site on
Thursday.
Lufthansa, which owns popular low-cost operator
Germanwings, announced it would lay on two flights to take the victims'
loved ones from Barcelona and Duesseldorf to the southern French city of
Marseille.
Helicopters began winching the remains of victims to Seyne-les-Alpes on Wednesday.
Interpol said it had dispatched a team of victim identification experts to the site.
Authorities
who had the gruesome task of sifting through the debris called off the
search at nightfall on Wednesday. They will resume at dawn.
Weather does not appear to be a factor in the crash and Germanwings had an unblemished safety record.
French
President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew
over the site to see the devastation on Wednesday. Spain's Prime
Minister Mariano Rajoy also visited a crisis centre near the scene.
"My
deepest sympathies with the families and all my thanks for the
friendship of the people of this region and in France," Merkel wrote in a
book of condolence.
A rescue worker climbs past debris at the plane crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France. Photo / AP The plane was carrying six crew and 144 passengers, including 16 German teenagers returning home from a school trip.
Bereaved
pupils from their high school in the small German town of Haltern wept
and hugged near a makeshift memorial of candles as they shared the pain
of losing their friends.
"Yesterday we were many, today we are alone," read a hand-painted sign at the school, decorated with 16 crosses.
Those killed - most of them about 15 years old - had reportedly won the trip in a lottery of their classmates.
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