As investigators hone in on what happened to the Germanwings flight that crashed into a the French Alps on its way from Barcelona to Duesseldorf, authorities are now saying the plane was crashed on purpose by co-pilot Andreas Lubitz.
Apparently, investigators have discovered that a button was pressed to cause the plane to start losing altitude and they insist that the only way that could happen is if the button was depressed on purpose. They also now feel that Lubitz was in the cockpit when the pilot was heard trying to break in.
They have no motive for the act.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin, citing information from the “black box” voice recorder, said the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit.
He intentionally started a descent while the pilot was locked out.
Mr Robin said there was “absolute silence in the cockpit” as the pilot fought to re-enter it.Meanwhile, the head of Lufthansa, the German carrier that owns Germanwings, said the pilot had undergone intensive training and “was 100% fit to fly without any caveats”.
“We have no findings at all about what motivated the pilot to do this terrible deed,” Carsten Spohr said.
Mr Spohr said Mr Lubitz’s training had been interrupted briefly six years ago but was resumed after “the suitability of the candidate was re-established”.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time a pilot has purposefully downed his plane.
It seems that U.S. airlines have a system to try and prevent a pilot of co-pilot locking the other out of the cockpit.
Instead of just leaving either pilot or co-pilot alone in the cockpit when one or the other needs to leave for whatever reason, a flight attendant will wait in the cockpit until the missing operator returns–meaning there are always two people in the cockpit and no one is ever alone there.