Breaking: Germanwings Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France

If it was terrorism (rather than insanity or suicide), the co-pilot would've tried to fly into a populated area.

Unless, he felt he didn't have enough time to get to a city or town before the pilot and passengers could eventually break down the door.

This is my unprofessional synopsis of information just now on Fox news from Meseille 3/26/15, sorry it's a little messy:


Pilot told copilot (Andreas Lubitz) that he (CP) was in charge. Pilot (Patrick S or K, a German national, seasoned veteran with more than 6,000 hours) stepped out of the cockpit. Copilot ( Andreas Lubitz 28 y/o) had only been working a few months, just out of flight school, 630 flight hours. Two actions here indicate voluntary descent of plant. One - didn't open door, two - had to turn knob several times to descent. If he just slumped over, the plane would have only descended a small degree. It went from 12,000 to 2000. Alarms were going off and pilot was pounding on door. Only heard screams from passengers at the very end, the last instant and then plane hit. Copilot was alive and breathing, normally, can be heard in cockpit. There is a camera in the cockpit but it wasn't activated because the CP was breathing normally. The captain tried pounding in the door.

At his stage, nothing indicates a terrorist attack. (But they do believe the plane crashed deliberately) it was an intentional attack! (WTF??????)

No contact between the Pilot, Co-pilot and the control tower during the last 8 minutes. Several calls from the CT in Mosse and none of these calls were answered.

Marseille was giving information in French on (Fox) and translated by female.

38,000 feet and took 10 minutes. Airplane hit the mountain @700km per hour, Intent to destroy.

Apparently there is a keypad outside door and will open within 30 seconds of correct code unless manually declined inside cockpit.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
If it was terrorism (rather than insanity or suicide), the co-pilot would've tried to fly into a populated area.

Unless, he felt he didn't have enough time to get to a city or town before the pilot and passengers could eventually break down the door.

People keep saying "but if it were Terrorism, so and so would have occurred..." but the truth is that terrorists can have different motivations and goals. Don't make the mistake of thinking that terrorism is all about inflicting the maximum number of casualties; it is more about spreading the maximum amount of fear among those not directly involved in the incident.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Was there any evidence of premeditation on the co-pilot's part, or was this a crime of opportunity (pilot unexpectedly leaving cockpit to use the LAV)?

originally posted by: IAMTAT
Was there any evidence of premeditation on the co-pilot's part, or was this a crime of opportunity (pilot unexpectedly leaving cockpit to use the LAV)?

Too early to speculate, will have to wait for more information to emerge before we can make that judgement. While that is the case, something does seem rather odd about the series of events as they have been depicted so far.

The strangest thing is that the co-pilot was "breathing normally" as the cockpit door was being pounded on...and the plane was crashing.

How is that possible for anyone?

a reply to: IAMTAT

They can't tell at this point. The conversations in the cockpit were normal, professional. Meseille says it could be "radical Islam or violent extremism". The findings will be coming in, hopefully asap. The Co-pilot's face book page had an image of New York but no pic of himself. The FB page has been taken down.


Here is a pic I took on my phone of the television image of Andreas Lubitz:

a reply to: StoutBroux

A photograph of Andreas Lubitz is available here.

a reply to: StoutBroux

Interesting about a German pilot having a FB page photo of NYC. I suppose it doesn't mean too much at this point...but I wonder if it was a pre-9/11 photo with the World Trade Center.

This is awful. i don't know what could posses anyone to do this to innocent people. Hopefully more info will be incoming about this. It all seems very senseless. No doubt there is much more to it.

a reply to: Fazza!

Thanks. THAT looks like the Golden gate bridge in San Francisco....not NYC.

a reply to: IAMTAT I thought so too but at this point, I have no clue of the actual image so one could only speculate. I am researching to find out.

I looked up FB and it clearly shows the image of him on the bridge. Bad info I guess.

originally posted by: IAMTAT
The strangest thing is that the co-pilot was "breathing normally" as the cockpit door was being pounded on...and the plane was crashing.

How is that possible for anyone?

Heroin?

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: IAMTAT
The strangest thing is that the co-pilot was "breathing normally" as the cockpit door was being pounded on...and the plane was crashing.

How is that possible for anyone?

Heroin?

Considering that he wasn't on heroin a few moments before, when he was speaking "professionally" to the pilot, I think heroin can be ruled out...

a reply to: peskyhumans

Pardon me?

How do you know what a 'terrorist' would do when a plane is under his/her control? You have no idea what they would do.

Perhaps they thought it best to just crash into a mountain instead of wasting time and allowing aircraft to bring the plane down which allow time for someone outside the cockpit to maybe get into the cockpit area??? Ever thought of that?

If this is due to the co-pilot committing suicide... I wonder why he didn't just off himself somewhere else instead of taking all those innocents with him.

'Brevik' comes to mind.

a reply to: twohawks

Bio break?

a reply to: IAMTAT

FALSE....the goal of Terrorism is to induce FEAR.

Do you think people might be fearful of flying, if they thought one of the individual responsible for the aircraft could deliberately fly it into the ground?!

Terrorism shouldn't be so narrowly defined as an act based on political intent or causing as many deaths as possible.

originally posted by: kidcraig
Oh god. Can we speculate now? We KNEW we were right. Just had to give the crew the benefit of the doubt.

a reply to: nelloh62

I never said you couldn't speculate. In fact I was speculating with my earlier posts myself on different scenarios. So why the comment ?

a reply to: Zaphod58

If the pilot still in the cockpit is dealing with a problem, the LAST thing he's worried about is unlocking the door.

From the Lufthansa press conference i just watched this is wrong because the person controlling plane doesn't need to do anything to allow the person in... The door is electronic, if the pilot is outside the cockpit can enter a code into the door keypad, this sounds an alarm inside the cockpit and unlocks the door. However, there is a toggle switch on the instrument panel that can be flipped to "locked" that overrides the unlocking. This is in place to avoid a pilot being locked out when the co pilot (or vice versa) has a medical emergency and cannot open the door.

F

The co-pilot didn't have a heart attack ! He deliberately disengaged the autopilot and took the plane into a dive. If you're having a heart attack why would you disengage the autopilot ? He also locked the door from the inside so the captain couldn't get back in, another deliberate act. The co-pilot can deny access to anyone for up to 5 minutes by placing the cockpit door into the lock position, this action can be repeated i.e. locked again after the 5 minutes are up. Due to the fact that the dive was at least 8-10 minutes long the co-pilot would have had to place the door into the lock position twice, this means he was awake during the entire dive and was awake at impact !