Second Black Box Confirms That Germanwings Co-pilot Deliberately Crashed in the French Alps and Even Accelerated as the Plane Descended
"A first reading shows that the pilot in the cockpit used the automatic pilot to descend the plane towards an altitude of 100 feet (30 metres)," said the French BEA crash investigation office in a statement.
"Then, several times during the descent, the pilot changed the automatic pilot settings to increase the aircraft's speed," added the investigators.
Based on cockpit audio recordings from the first black box, recovered hours after the March 24 crash, prosecutors believe 27-year-old German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and then deliberately set the plane on a deadly collision course with the mountains.
The latest information from the second black box appears to confirm the theory that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately smashed the plane into the mountains, killing all
150 people on board.As he barricaded himself at the Airbus A320's controls, he appears to have ignored efforts by his senior colleague to bash his way through the cockpit door of the 24-year-old jet, which had been reinforced under rules to protect pilots after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Authorities found the second black box, which contains technical flight data, on April 2, 2015 after a gruelling 10-day search in difficult mountain terrain. Alice Coldefy, the only woman on the 43-strong elite mountain police team, uncovered the box on her first day on the search.
"Everyone was happy. (It was a) relief for all the people that had been working there for a week and a half without a break," the 32-year-old told AFP.
The box arrived at BEA headquarters outside Paris under police guard on Thursday evening and investigators immediately set to work reconstructing the last moments of flight 9525 to Duesseldorf.
The BEA's purely factual description of the initial data focused on the autopilot, which is governed by a set of knobs sitting on a console between the two pilots. But the brief actions described by the BEA lent technical weight to a picture painted by prosecutors of methodical and cool-headed actions as the aircraft hurtled for eight minutes towards the ground under the control of a trained pilot.
"The autopilot was reprogrammed several times to increase the speed during the descent," a BEA spokeswoman said.
French investigators believe that Lubitz was conscious until the moment of impact and appears to have acted repeatedly to stop an excessive speed alarm from sounding.
The flight data recorder monitors hundreds of parameters, including any commands made directly from the co-pilot's seat.
As well as inputs to shared controls such as the autopilot, it may record seat movements that might prove which pilot remained at the controls while the other left the cockpit.
The BEA now faces the laborious task of synchronising the flight data extracted from thermally protected memory strips with the earlier cockpit audio recordings and radar tracks.
The agency's spokeswoman said it would "days or even weeks" to finish analysing the data.
"Work is continuing to determine the precise sequence of events during the flight," the BEA said.
Mountain officers and trained dogs are continuing to search the crash site. When the terrain is fully cleared of body parts and belongings, a private company will take out the large airplane debris.
German prosecutors say Lubitz's medical records, from before he received his pilot's license, had referred to "suicidal tendencies." The German flag carrier said the co-pilot had told the airline in 2009 about his illness after interrupting his flight training. Lufthansa, Germanwings' parent company, said it knew six years ago that he had had an episode of "severe depression" before he finished his flight training.
Doctors had recently found no sign that he intended to hurt himself or others, but he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash. Police found torn-up sick notes during a search of his apartment after the crash.
Sources: AFP, April 3, 2015; Reuters, April 3, 2015
On April 3, 2015 the French BEA reported that the flight data recorder was received by the BEA on April 2, 2015, it was opened and a first read out of the data showed, that the pilot in the cockpit used the autopilot to descend the aircraft down to 100 feet, on several occasions the speed of the aircraft was adjusted during the descent. [Source]
The revelations from the second black box recorder comes after it emerged Lubitz had researched suicide methods and cockpit door security in the days leading up to the disaster.
Prosecutors said an examination of a tablet computer found at his apartment revealed he had recently used internet search terms such as cockpit doors and their security and
suicide methods. It was also reported that Lubitz told doctors he was on sick leave rather than flying and had been prescribed an anti-anxiety drug so strong it can increase the risk of suicide.
Citing sources from the investigation, German newspaper Bild reported that Lubitz sometimes lied to doctors that he was off work and wanted to get better so he could fly again. It said he gave them information about his job as a pilot and his employer, Germanwings, but concealed that he was still working.
He was apparently more stable in recent years, but in the past few weeks had reportedly seen doctors three times for depression and an eye doctor over fears he was losing his sight.
Bild said it discovered that he was prescribed drugs, including the sedative Lorazepam, to combat the range of disorders.
A pharmacologist said: "It is prescribed to combat anxiety, tension and sleep disorders. Whether you should fly a plane or even drive is questionable."
Doctors had recently found no sign that Lubitz intended to hurt himself or others. But he was receiving treatment from neurologists and psychiatrists who had signed him off sick from work a number of times, including on the day of the crash.
Investigators continue to deny reports that mobile phone footage from on board the jet had emerged.
They say they have found phones amid the wreckage but the devices have yet to be thoroughly examined.
Source: Daily Mail, April 3, 2015
The photos below are thought to be the first of the crash site, taken by Menno Boermans, a paramedic on the rescue mission:
Foto van wrakstukken via de lokale krant Le Dauphine Libere. #Germanwings pic.twitter.com/WYVjCWYrTR
— Menno Boermans (@Menno_Boermans) March 24, 2015
The tweet and photos have been deleted; however, they were captured by the Bristol Post before they were deleted.
Click here for video at BBC of rescue workers at the crash site.
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