Second black box backs suicide theory
GERMANWINGS pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately caused the plane crash in the French Alps, even accelerating the plane’s descent, readings from the second black box confirmed on Friday.
France’s air accident bureau, BEA, said that the German clearly changed the settings to increase the plane’s speed and hasten its collision with the mountain in the French Alps.
“A first reading shows that the pilot in the cockpit used the automatic pilot to descend the plane towards an altitude of 100 feet [30m]. Then, several times during the descent, the pilot changed the automatic pilot settings to increase the aircraft’s speed,” BEA said a day after the black box was found.
Investigators are “continuing to determine the precise sequence of events during the flight”, it said.
This comes as top French psychiatrist Samuel Lepastier said it was highly likely that Lubitz was suffering from schizophrenia given the strong medications he was on — notably olanzapine. Side effects can include “unusual changes in personality, thoughts or behaviour; hallucinations and suicidal tendencies”, said Lepastier of Paris Diderot University.
On Tuesday, Germanwings parent Lufthansa confirmed that when Lubitz resumed pilot training in 2009 he provided the flight school with medical documents showing he had gone through a “previous episode of severe depression”.
Lepastier said Lubitz’s initial severe depressive episode “could have been the first manifestation of schizophrenia, which often first strikes in one’s early 20s”.
German prosecutors revealed this week that Lubitz had conducted internet research on “cockpit doors” and “suicide” just before the crash.
Asked whether Lubitz would have been aware he was committing mass murder, Lepastier said “probably not”. “Deliriously depressed people are so narcissistic that others don’t count in their mind. There may well have been no real desire to kill others; rather one can say he forgot about everyone else.”
A Germanwings flight from Rome to Hanover, Germany, made an emergency landing on Friday after a passenger and crew member felt unwell, possibly from panic attacks. — ©