Probe reveals shock details of plane crash

THE co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps after rehearsing the descent on an earlier flight, French investigators said yesterday.

The BEA civil aviation investigators said the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, had practised the manoeuvre on the outbound trip from Düsseldorf to Barcelona just hours before his suicidal actions on the return flight.

“Several altitude selections towards 100 feet [30m] were recorded during descent on the flight that preceded the accident flight, while the co-pilot was alone in the cockpit,” read the report.

Data from the earlier flight was found in one of two black boxes from the aircraft.

Remi Jouty, the director of the BEA, said there had been no noticeable effect as the plane had already begun its descent into Barcelona while he was carrying out the practice manipulations.

The Airbus 320 crashed in the French Alps on March 24, killing all 150 people on board. The probe into the crash confirmed initial suspicions that Lubitz deliberately brought the plane down.

On the fatal flight back to Düsseldorf everything initially proceeded normally, with Lubitz even eating his meal 15 minutes into the flight, the report said.

At 9.30am the captain left the cockpit to go to the toilet, and the selected altitude on the flight control unit changed “in one second” from cruising altitude of 11 600m to 30m -- the minimum height possible to select on an A320. The speed of the plane was also gradually increased.

During the descent, air traffic controllers in Marseille tried to call the plane 11 times on three frequencies with no response. The air force also tried to contact the plane three times to no avail.

The cockpit recorder showed the pilot’s frantic efforts to re-enter the cockpit. The interphone rang three times and he triggered a signal in the cockpit when he entered a code to open the door, which is heavily reinforced to prevent hijackings.

A person was heard knocking on the door six times and a muffled voice could be heard asking for the door to be opened.

Another five “noises similar to violent blows” could be heard just two minutes before the end of the flight and a warning system blaring “Terrain, Terrain, Pull Up, Pull Up” sounded until the crash. – AFP