 |
Andreas Lubitz locked the pilot out the of the Airbus A320's cockpit before setting the plane's controls to descend into a rocky valley, French prosecutors revealed yesterday.
As well as having been signed off from training with depression in 2008, it was reported this morning that Lubitz had continued to receive mental health support up until this week's crash.
The 28-year-old was in the middle of the 'relationship crisis' with his girlfriend in the weeks before the crash and may have been struggling to cope with a break-up, German newspaper Bild reported.
It was also claimed this morning that the couple had previously been engaged to be married next year.
New information about Lubitz's life emerged just hours after police investigating the disaster began a four-hour search of his flat, which he is said to have shared with a girlfriend. Officers reportedly found 'evidence of mental illness' but no suicide note.
Yesterday, Lubitz's boss admitted he had slipped through the ‘safety net’ and should never have been flying.
It was also revealed that the fitness fanatic had suffered from depression and ‘burnout’ which had held up his career.
He reportedly received a year and half of psychiatric treatment and was at one point recommended to be examined by a doctor before flying.
But, incredibly, he passed all his psychological assessments and was later considered fit to fly.
Prosecutors yesterday revealed chilling recordings from the doomed aircraft showing that piano teacher’s son Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit so he could crash the plane into an alpine ravine.
In audio files extracted from the plane's cockpit voice recorder - discovered on Wednesday at the remote crash site - the captain was heard growing increasingly distressed as he tried to force his way back into the flight deck.
Reports in Germany this morning suggest the locked-out pilot may have resorted to using an axe in a desperate bid to get through the armoured door as the plane plummeted towards the ground.
Prosecutors said the screams of passengers aware of their fate could be heard in the final seconds.
In a blunt admission, Carsten Spohr, the head of Lufthansa which owns the budget airline, admitted Lubitz had slipped through the safety net with devastating consequences.
‘The pilot had passed all his tests, all his medical exams,’ he said. ‘He was 100 per cent fit to fly without any restrictions.
'We have at Lufthansa, a reporting system where crew can report – without being punished – their own problems, or they can report about the problems of others without any kind of punishment.
'All the safety nets we are all so proud of here have not worked in this case.’
Yesterday, as repercussions of Tuesday’s tragedy sent shockwaves through the airline industry:
- Airlines across Europe reviewed safety rules and insisted that no pilot should be left alone in the cockpit;
- Police urgently probed the background of Lubitz amid rumours that his personal life was seriously troubled;
- Detectives have carried out a four-hour search of his flat, but are not thought to have found a suicide note.
Last night police raided Lubitz’s family home in a small town north of Frankfurt and an apartment in Dusseldorf, taking away a computer, laptop and other files. Lubitz is understood to have split his time between the two addresses.
It was suggested today that Lubitz - who had worked for Lufthansa as a cabin attendant for nearly a year before being accepted for flight training - may have been teased by other pilot's over his previous role.
A friend said: 'His nickname was "Tomato Andi" - a reference to his past employment as a flight steward.
Following last night's search of his flat, a police spokesman said: ‘We have discovered a number of things at his apartment which we will now examine and carry tests on to see if they are significant.
'We do not yet know of what significance they are,' said the spokesman, adding: 'No crucial piece of evidence has been found yet.'
Airline chiefs confirmed Lubitz, who won an award for ‘outstanding’ aviation skills and dubbed himself ‘Flying Andy’, took several months off work in 2008 and had to retrain to join Germanwings.
They are said to have been ‘stunned’ by the revelation that Lubitz waited for his captain to visit the toilet – and then locked him out
The picture of Lubitz which is emerging from his home town and Dusseldorf is of a man who, since he was boy, was determined to become an airline pilot - but who was repeatedly held back by mental health problems.
A friend told Bild: 'He always had high ambitions but was considered to be second-league because he had been a flight attendant.'
Another told Passauer Neue Presse: 'He wanted to become a pilot but he is mentally unstable.'
It also emerged today that his parents only discovered that their son was a mass murderer just minutes before the bombshell press conference by prosecutors in Marseille.
His mother, a piano teacher, and father, a successful businessman, were understood to be in the French city at the time of the announcement, but kept separate from the victims' relatives.
Their whereabouts are now unknown, but it is believed they are being questioned by police.
Lubitz’s father Gunter and mother have both been questioned by police and are said to be ‘devastated’ by the revelations.
The couple's £400,00 two-storey detached home in Montabaur, a town 40 miles from Bonn where Lubitz is thought to have grown up, was also searched by detectives.
As a child, Lubitz is said to have always wanted to be a pilot and covered his bedroom walls with pictures of planes and collected model aircraft.
The mother of a former schoolmate of Lubitz said he had told her daughter he had taken a break from pilot training because he was suffering from depression. ‘Apparently he had a burnout,’ she added.
The grief of victims' families visiting the scene of the crash yesterday turned to anger when they heard the pilot was to blame.
An interpreter who worked with them told La Provence newspaper: 'At first they were very calm, dignified. They wanted to know if their loved ones had suffered.'
But after the truth of what happened emerged, the mood changed, the interpreter said. 'There were screams, some people broke down in tears. It was very hard for them and us, too.'
The Germanwings tragedy has already led to a number of developments in the airline industry.
The Civil Aviation Authority called on UK airline operators to review safety procedures, and EasyJet was among several airlines to introduce rules so that two crew members are in the cockpit at all times.
Compensation payouts from the tragedy could total more than £100million, with the families of each victim given around £700,000 each, depending on the victim's earning ability.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the revelations gave the tragedy a ‘new, simply incomprehensible dimension’.
The fate of the Germanwings plane has chilling similarities to that of LAM flight 470 which crashed in Namibia in November 2013, killing all 27 passengers and six crew.
Air crash investigators believe the Embraer 190 jet was flown into the ground by the captain after his co-pilot went to the toilet.
The jet's captain, Herminio dos Santos Fernandes was believed to have had serious personal problems at the time of his death.
When his co-pilot went to the toilet, flight data information recovered from the scene found that Fernandes manually changed the aircraft's altitude from 38,000 feet to almost 600 feet below ground level. He also pushed the aircraft's throttles back to idle and selected the jet's maximum operating speed.
Disturbingly, the cockpit voice recorder picked up the sound of the co-pilot pounding on the door in an attempt to regain access to the flight deck.
Four specialists from Interpol have joined senior French detectives trying to work out why Lubitz locked himself into the cockpit.
Dailymail
No comments:
Post a Comment