Germanwings Crash: Investigators Can't Find the Flight Data Recorder But Found a Cell Phone Video Taken by a Passenger Moments Before the Crash

Reports: Video found in wreckage shows Germanwings flight's final seconds (Video)

"Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini, a high ranking official involved in the recovery operation, has categorically denied that any mobile phone footage had been found by investigators at the site." 

March 31, 2015

CNN - Video found in the wreckage on a French mountainside shows the nightmarish final seconds of Germanwings Flight 9525, reports said Tuesday.

Taken on a cell phone, the video "was so chaotic that it was hard to identify people, but the sounds of the screaming passengers made it perfectly clear that they were aware of what was about to happen to them," according to the French magazine Paris Match, which obtained the video along with the German newspaper Bild:

"One can hear cries of 'My God' in several languages. Metallic banging can also be heard more than three times, perhaps of the pilot trying to open the cockpit door with a heavy object. Towards the end, after a heavy shake, stronger than the others, the screaming intensifies. Then nothing," Paris Match reports.

The two publications described the video but did not post the video itself.

Lufthansa, meanwhile, announced that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz told told his Lufthansa flight training school in 2009 that he had a "previous episode of severe depression."

The airline is sharing that information and documents -- including training and medical records -- with public prosecutors.

Authorities have said Lubitz purposely crashed Flight 9525 into the French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people aboard.

His girlfriend knew he had psychological issues but "did not know the extent of the problems," a European government official briefed on the investigation into last week's crash told CNN on Tuesday.

The girlfriend told investigators the couple were working through the issues together and "were optimistic" they could solve the problems; she was just as surprised as everyone else by what he did to the plane, the source says.

The girlfriend also told investigators Lubitz had seen an eye doctor and a neuropsychologist, both of whom deemed him unfit to work recently and concluded he had psychological issues, according to the source.

Lubitz complained about vision problems; the eye doctor diagnosed a psychosomatic disorder and gave him an "unfit for work" note, the source said.

Investigators are looking into whether Lubitz feared his medical condition would cause him to lose his pilot's license, the source said, adding that while flying was "a big part of his life," it's only one theory being considered.

Another source, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation, told CNN earlier Tuesday that authorities believe the primary motive for Lubitz to bring down the plane was that he feared he would not be allowed to fly because of his medical problems.

Too stressed?

Lubitz told the neuropsychologist that he was too stressed with work, the European government official briefed on the investigation said.

The official said he was not aware of any suicidal tendencies reported by Lubitz to the doctors, but that investigators believe he was suicidal.

Airline officials have said that if Lubitz went to a doctor on his own, he would have been required to self-report if deemed unfit to fly.

The European government official also reiterated that German media tabloid reports that the girlfriend is pregnant or had major personal problems are all speculation and rumor.

The girlfriend and the co-pilot had not, as was widely reported by some media, broken up the day before the crash, the source said.

Official: Lubitz had suicidal tendencies

Earlier, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Dusseldorf, Germany, said Lubitz suffered from suicidal tendencies at some point before his aviation career.

Investigators have not found any writings or conversations where Lubitz shared his motives or confessed to any plans, prosecutor's spokesman Christoph Kumpa said.

However, medical records reveal that Lubitz was suicidal at one time and underwent psychotherapy. This was before he ever got his pilot's license, Kumpa said.

Kumpa emphasized there's no evidence suggesting Lubitz was suicidal or acting aggressively before the crash.

The prosecutor's office confirmed what some media outlets had reported about doctors deeming Lubitz unfit to fly, though there were no physical illnesses found.

Recovery efforts continue

While investigators search for clues to Lubitz's motivation, recovery workers continue the grim task of searching for the remains of those killed in the March 24 crash.

Lt. Col. Jean-Marc Menichini, Gendarmerie spokesman for the Provence-Alpes-Cotes d'Azur region, told CNN on Tuesday that a new path has been completed linking Le Vernet, a nearby community, to the mountainous ravine where the plane's debris is scattered.

It will be used by rescue teams to access the area, he said.

Capt. Yves Naffrechoux, also of the Gendarmerie unit, said Monday that the 1-kilometer path would cut down on the time it takes to reach the crash site considerably.

The trip will now take 30 minutes from Seyne-les-Alps, the staging post for the operation, with less walking involved and thus less fatigue, but also with fewer risks than helicopter transfers.

Two helicopters are still working in case weather conditions improve and allow them to fly, Menichini said.

The remains of at least 78 people on board the plane have been identified so far using DNA analysis.

Naffrechoux warned Monday that "it may not be possible to find the human remains of all the 150 passengers, as some of them may have been pulverized by the crash."

But French President Francois Hollande, speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, was more positive, saying that it should be possible to identify all the victims by the end of the week.

A simple stone memorial has been set up at Le Vernet, where grieving relatives of those killed have laid flowers and held prayers.

The opening of the road, which must still be paved, will eventually allow family members also to reach the spot where their loved ones died.

Authorities say there are some 26 families of six different nationalities in the area Tuesday.

However, Patricia Willaert, head of the Alpes de Haute-Provence district, told reporters that Lubitz's family was not among those to have come since the crash.

"There had been some rumors, but they have not come to the site," she said. "The family of the co-pilot has not come. We have no knowledge of information informing us of that."

Willaert said some 450 people close to the victims had already traveled to the area, with more expected to come during the Easter weekend.

"The priority has been to welcome them in the best possible way," she said. She praised the mobilization of local citizens, who spontaneously offered 2,000 beds to accommodate the victims' families.

German investigators and French criminal investigators are due to work together at the crash site Wednesday, Dusseldorf police said.

Medical record emerging

Much attention has focused on Lubitz's state of mind, with suggestions that he may have had mental health issues.

Lubitz, 27, passed his annual pilot recertification medical examination in summer 2014, a German aviation source told CNN. He had started working as a commercial pilot in 2013, said Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings.

An official with Lufthansa said that the exam only tests physical health, not psychological health.

It's unknown if Lubitz mentioned his problems on a form that asks yes-or-no questions about physical and mental illness, suicide attempts and medications. European pilots must fill out the form to be recertified.

Federal aviation authorities, not the airline, issue the form. The form is privileged information, and Lufthansa never sees a pilot's completed form, an airline representative said.

The airline would only get a "clear to fly" notice from the aviation doctors alerting the airline that a pilot has completed recertification.

Safety investigation

France's accident investigation agency, the BEA, said Tuesday that the ongoing safety investigation was focusing on a more detailed analysis of the flight history leading up to the crash, based on the audio recovered from the cockpit voice recorder and any other available data.

BEA spokeswoman Martine Del Bono told CNN: 

"A deliberate act by a man with a disturbed psychological profile is a possible scenario. The first step of the investigation is to describe more precisely what happened."

This will be based mainly on analysis of the cockpit voice recorder, to be supplemented by data from the flight data recorder if it is found, she said.

"But we will also look at other events with possibly similar scenarios, try to understand if there are systemic weaknesses which may contribute or facilitate such scenarios. 

"We will in particular look at the cockpit door locking as well as the criteria and procedures applied to detect specific psychological profiles."

Lufthansa said in a statement Tuesday that it was canceling its 60th anniversary celebrations, planned for April 15. 

Instead, the company will provide a live broadcast for its employees of an official state ceremony to be held April 17 in Cologne Cathedral for bereaved families and friends to remember the victims, it said.

Some things are not adding up

March 27, 2015

pilotmike, PPRuNe - Some things are simply not adding up for me, particularly the 'evidence' supporting the theory that this was a malicious act by the FO. It seems that the FO has as good as been found guilty of murder without full evidence or any trial, however...

1. We are assured that the sound of the FO breathing (note: 'normally', not hyperventilating or panicked) is heard through to the end. Similarly, we're told that the Alt select can be heard being wound down, a seat being moved, and the door being opened and/or closed. Yet I haven't heard of any reports of the FD door being positively locked in the 'Lock' position, yet this should be clearly audible if these other faint sounds have been picked up. I cannot help feeling that this would be of sufficient importance to have been explicitly stated in the very detailed account offered by the French authorities of what they have heard. Some have questioned how breathing, described as gentle can be heard. I can assure readers that with digital signal processing techniques, including correlation and autocorrelation, signals significantly below the noise floor (ie completely drowned out by noise to the human ear) can be measured and heard, making the CVR a very rich source of audio clues that we wouldn't normally be able to hear. Few are aware that GPS operates by receiving signals sometimes 30dB or even 40dB below ambient noise levels (ie when massively swamped by noise which is many orders of magnitudes stronger than the actual GPS signal) by using this very technique.

2. Is the reported 'normal' breathing consistent with the alleged actions the FO is apparently guilty of doing? It gives the impression of being indicative of a relaxed, possibly incapacitated or even semi-conscious or unconscious person rather than someone knowing they are pointing at a mountain and about to die.

3. It has been assumed that the FO was conscious, if for no other reason than because he HAD to repeatedly re-lock the door after the 5 minute time-out. Have we had this explicitly stated by the authorities who know the facts or heard the CVR audio? If so, wouldn't this positive re-locking be clearly audible on the CVR as per my point above? However, the FO did not NEED to re-lock the door. If the Captain was preoccupied with banging on the door, as has been reported, it is entirely possible, even likely that he never made a (further) attempt to activate the access code as by this time his desperation to re-enter the FD would very likely be closing down options in his mind, to simply trying to smash his way in, just as we have been told. And wouldn't any attempt to re-enter the entry code be reported on as significant? A brief break in the door banging while a code is re-entered would be quite obvious on the CVR.

4. We are informed that the passengers were apparently unaware of the problem until the final seconds. By all accounts, the Captain made significant efforts to either gain the FO's attention, or indeed to break the door down. Are we really to believe that this all went completely unnoticed by the passengers?

Given these anomalies, I don't believe we have been told significant facts that have been revealed by the CVR. And it also seems very premature to judge the FO as totally guilty, as many have done so on this very forum, until the full facts are known. Maybe the media reports forced their hand, but I believe this partial revelation of CVR evidence combined with strong suggestion that the FO deliberately did this is not the way to handle such an important investigation as this.

Accident Investigation Must Still Be Conducted Until All the Information Can Be Presented Cogently

March 27, 2015

eezeegeebee, PPRuNe - I read the measured statement from IFALPA with a sense of relief and gratitude that the voice of reason is still to be heard above a cacophony of hysterical speculation, much of which, sadly, is to be found in these pages. However this appalling disaster occurred, the proven and highly-developed processes of accident investigation must still be conducted until all the information can be presented cogently, causes established, errors identified and recommendations and mandates issued to responsible parties. To think otherwise is to think along the lines of the poster I have quoted (and there are plenty to choose from). This is a juror who doesn’t need to sit through the entire hearing, who needs no evidence above the sly whisper heard outside the court-house to the effect that “’e done it, and no mistake”.

According to the original NY Times article on March 25 the initial source of the CVR leak was a “senior French military official” who “requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing”. The means by which the original information came into the public domain will, quite rightly, be the subject of its own enquiry in due course and one can only hope that, in turn, the relentless process of effective justice will grind out another truth there: establish the causes, identify the errors, &c, &c. Boring, slow, methodical? Yes – and unapologetically so. But these are the methods we must use.

Indirectly, this disclosure led to a press release in which the Marseille public prosecutor, Brice Robin, then elaborated on some of the contents of the CVR. M. Robin is not trained in air accident investigation – he is merely a prosecutor, a person whose speciality is to identify someone to accuse of a crime and then prosecute through the legal system. His premature public appearance has contributed nothing to the air accident investigation being conducted by BEA and has served only to feed the insatiable appetites of the global media monster that lives amongst us.

There are very few hard facts around which to formulate a working hypothesis – let alone a provable one – and yet the world has seemingly already made up its mind on the cause, basing this on a single un-attributed leak and the accusatorial conclusions of a man lacking any apparent aviation expertise. But before we completely re-design the world of air transportation, let’s take time out to review the evidence which has been presented so far to the court of public opinion. This might enable us to stay on track but, more importantly, create a platform for the defence to show why this case is far from proven.

Our first witness appears anonymously, but describes him/herself as a "senior French military official". Naturally this witness has refused to swear any form of oath. M. SFMO, what can you tell the court about this case?

“There was a very smooth, very cool conversation between the pilots. Then 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, and then he hits the door stronger, and no answer. There is never an answer. You can hear he is trying to smash the door down. We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out. 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 next witness is Remi Jouty from the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'aviation civile. M. Jouty, what do you know of this incident?

“er we just succeeded in getting er an audio file which contains er useable er sounds and voices er we have not yet er fully er understood and worked on it to be able to say ok this is starting at this precise point in flight this is ending at this precise point in flight and er we hear such persons saying that etcetera this is an ongoing work which for which we will we hope to have a first rough ideas in mmm matter of days and having a full understanding of it in conjunction with other information er coming in particular from other recorded parameters er will take weeks and even months”

Finally, the court calls Marseilles public prosecutor Brice Robin. What can you tell the court, M. Robin?

"We could hear human breathing inside the cabin and that sound of breathing can be heard until the impact. That means that the co-pilot was alive. You then hear contacts from the Marseilles control tower on several occasions, but no answer from the co-pilot. The air traffic controllers then asked for the transponder code - 7700 - and there was no response, which means that this plane had now become a priority over all other planes for a potential emergency landing. The control tower even asked other planes to contact this Airbus by radio, and there was also no response. The alarms were activated to alert the aircraft of its proximity to the ground. At this moment we hear strong, violent knocks, almost as if to force the door open. I remind you that this is an armoured door, according to international norms, to protect against potential terrorist actions. These alarms, meant to alert the aircraft, were activated. Just until the final impact, we could hear the noise of a first impact on a slope. I remind you that the plane glided over a slope before it crashed at 700 km/hr on the mountain. I also remind you that there was no distress or emergency message - like a "mayday, mayday, mayday" - received by the air traffic controllers. The most plausible and probable interpretation for us is that the co-pilot, by a voluntary abstention, by voluntary abstention, refused to open the door to the cockpit to the flight captain and activated the button to start descent. So he activated this button to initiate loss of altitude for a reason that we are completely unaware of today but that can be analyzed as an intention to destroy the aircraft."

That is the entire case for the prosecution.

For the sake of argument now imagine that an event occurred during this flight, an unusual event certainly, but one that still has to be trained for by all commercial pilots and one for which specialised equipment has been installed at great cost on all aircraft. It is an event which will lead to death of all on board an aircraft at high altitude unless it is identified promptly by the pilots who must then deal with it quickly and professionally by the execution of a precise drill - the steps of which cannot be varied. Done by two pilots this drill is complex and demanding – done by an experienced pilot acting alone it becomes even harder. But when it must be executed by a single pilot who has no practical experience of it, minimal practise of it in a simulated environment and no experience whatsoever of having to do any form of non-normal or emergency procedure on his or her own in a real aircraft, it could lead to certain disaster. Miss any step in this drill, reverse or confuse the order of the first few steps and it is an assured fact that all on board the affected aircraft will perish. This event has killed before and it is one of the greatest certainties of flying commercial jets that it will kill again.

Nothing in the evidence from France can rule out the fact that this event occurred on board the Germanwings A320 on March 24th 2015. My learned colleagues will appreciate why the evidence of breathing noises being heard on the CVR right up to the moment of impact actually makes it more, not less, likely that this event occurred on this flight.

It’s time to back off and wait for the French investigative authorities do their job. There is nothing like enough evidence to predict the outcome of this enquiry, despite what the French public prosecutor would like to believe.

Just saying.

Facts, Lessons, Damages, Punishment - Questions

March 30, 2015

A0283, PPRuNe - One of the lessons of this and previous accident investigations has been, that it is not clear to the international public how BEA and French public "Procureur" investigations are operating side by side during aerospace accident investigations. Where goals and work run in parallel, where they overlap, how independence is assured - while working with a substantial set of common evidence.

This understanding has at least two sides. First, part of the public not taking the time to do (at least some of) the required homework. Second, the way in which French authorities make clear to especially the international audience, how they operate side by side.

It appears that both public and authorities have to improve their act. So we should appreciate the work of some PPRuNe members to help us with our homework. And I hope more is forthcoming.

The officials on the French side appear to be doing their job, but not with respect to improving understanding about what they do in general and how that works out in this specific case. Not an easy case because the focus changed from an accident to, as it seems, an act with intent.

As a consequence there is a lot of confusion with the general public, and in for instance some PPRuNe posts we can see posters judging the procureur investigation by accident investigation standards.

A partially separate and partially overlapping issue is leaking information. In this case there have been a number of 'serious' leaks. The strict control of CVR and FDR information, including legal and regulatory back up of this, suggests that the probability of leaks originating from the accident investigation side was low. The fact that a high French military (in some countries part of the police is military - I wonder which side it was) person or even official is said to be the source, is in line with that probability. This means that information control on the procureurs side can clearly conflict with the accident investigation side. And also conflicts with the legal requirements on the accident investigation side.

One question that I have had for many many years now is how 'serious' serious is. We do not have the transcripts or other prove available, but in spite of that there are judgements all around, and a lot of damage to the feelings of friends and relatives of the victims may have already been done. Lack of information from the official side and confusion appear to be extremely painful. I wonder if preliminary information that may have to be changed later would reduce or increase the suffering of victims and relatives, and also on the "improvement of safety" efforts on the aerospace professionals side.

So how sure are we, that the present framework is better than one with more and earlier official transparency and openness. More transparency by earlier and more complete official presentation and publication of information that includes how that information should be judged at the time of publication. Transparency that reduces the pressure on all parties - investigators, procureurs, prosecutor, victims and relatives, authorities, relatives, professionals, and the general audience.

Heads of state, government ministers, high ranking police and military - we only need to look over the last two years - have made statements that were out of order, factually and technically incorrect, etc. I have great admiration for the way in which investigators have responded to this. But it should not be necessary for them to do this.

The context today is much different than it was years ago. Modern public requirements and technology are quickly eroding the foundation on which the present framework is built.

This post basically contains questions. In this case the lead is French. But the questions are of course the same or similar for other recent cases in other countries. However, we learn by accident investigations, so lets keep the scope confined to this case of GermanWings9525. I hope some people can help me with improving my 'homework' by sharing their insights and views.