Recovery of bodies ends; video shows cabin chaos
LA SEYNE-SUR-MER, France (AFP) — The bodies of victims from the Germanwings plane disaster have all been recovered from the crash site in the French Alps, authorities said Tuesday.
"There are no more bodies at the crash site. Tomorrow 20 mountain troops will head up with the teams to recover the personal belongings," Lieutenant- Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini told AFP, adding that the search was still going on for the plane's second black box.
Meanwhile, the co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a Germanwings plane told his bosses he had suffered from severe depression, Lufthansa has revealed, as the airlines' chief executives announced plans to visit the crash site on Wednesday.
Lufthansa, which owns Germanwings, said 27-year- old Andreas Lubitz had told the airline in 2009 about his illness after interrupting his flight training.
The parent company said it had handed additional information, especially medical and training documents, to prosecutors in the western German city of Duesseldorf after ''further internal investigations''.
The airline had before now only said that Lubitz had interrupted his training for several months six years ago, but Lufthansa chief Carsten Spohr had not provided an explanation as to why he did so.
Lufthansa, meanwhile, said $300 million ( 280 million euros) in provisions had been earmarked to cover the damages.
‘My God’ in several languages
A video purportedly showing the final seconds inside the cabin of the ill-fated Germanwings airliner minutes before it crashed emerged Tuesday, two European media said, although French police denied the claims to CNN.
One sequence reportedly shows a chaotic scene with passengers screaming ''My God''.
French magazine Paris Match and German daily Bild said the authenticity of the video filmed on a mobile phone is ''unquestionable'' and that it had been retrieved from the wreckage of last Tuesday's crash.
''The scene was so chaotic that it was hard to identify people, but the sounds of the screaming passengers made it perfectly clear that they were aware of what was about to happen to them,'' said Paris Match, adding that people were heard crying ''My God'' in several languages.