[Updated at 9.20 p.m. on March 25 to include additional information from the BEA]
French accident investigator Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses (BEA) has extracted a usable audio file from the damaged cockpit voice recorder (CVR) retrieved from the wreckage of the Germanwings Airbus A320 that crashed Tuesday in the French Alps. However, BEA director Remi Jouty told reporters at a March 25 press conference in Paris that the agency is "nowhere close" to being able to give an explanation for the accident.
Search crews continue to look for flight 4U9525’s flight data recorder (FDR) among the thousands of pieces of the ill-fated jet scattered on a mountainside some 12 nautical miles southwest of Barcelonnette, France. Jouty said that BEA investigators had yet to receive ACARS aircraft systems status data that should have been relayed to the operator's maintenance department on the ground.
Reports in the New York Times published late on March 25 quoted unnamed French military sources saying that the CVR audio revealed that one of the A320's two pilots had left the cockpit during the flight and then was unable to get back into the flight deck. This information has not been officially confirmed by accident investigators who gave no indication as to the content of the CVR recordings during the press conference.
The crash, which presumably killed all 144 passengers and six crewmembers, “pulverized” the airframe, leaving the CVR in a partially mangled state and potentially complicating the search for clues. Due to the very small size of the fragments, examining the airframe and systems will be “difficult and probably rather limited,” Jouty said. According to BEA, the size of the fragments excludes the possibility of an in-flight break-up, which would have created larger pieces. The largest one on the crash site is half the size of a car, a photographer said, and many appear to be only a few inches long.
Jouty explained that the crew, in its last radio communication with ATC, confirmed it was proceeding directly to the IRMAR navigation point--a routine message--at 10:30 a.m. local time. Then, at 10:31, the descent began and continued at a regular rate until the end. According to Flightaware.com, a decrease in speed, from 490 to 430 knots, can be seen over the last four minutes prior to the crash. At 10:40:47, Marseille Airport's secondary radar recorded the last radar position, at 6,175 feet. This altitude is close to that of the crash site, approximately 5,000 feet.
A spokesman for France's DGAC civil aviation authority told AIN that no distress call or signal came from the aircraft between the time it took off from Barcelona at 10 a.m. and the time air traffic controllers lost contact with the airplane at 10:53 a.m. However, a controller triggered an emergency response at 10:30 a.m. after he noticed the A320 descending and not responding to radio communications. Shortly after ATC triggered the alarm, a fighter had taken off from Orange but arrived on site after the crash, the French air force said. This is consistent with the time needed to take off and fly to the area, a source familiar with the procedure told AIN.
The BEA has assigned a team of seven investigators to work with three counterparts from German accident investigation agency BFU, as well as several technical advisors from Airbus and engine supplier CFM International. Lufthansa said safety pilots from Germanwings and Lufthansa, a technician from Lufthansa Technik and a radio expert from Lufthansa Systems are at the scene of the accident close to Barcelonnette. The BEA's accident investigation designation for the flight is GWI 18G.
Data from Flightradar24.com shows a descent at a rate of around 3,500 feet per minute, over the course of the eight minutes that preceded the crash.
Airbus confirmed that it delivered the A320, registered as D-AIPX and carrying manufacturer serial number 147, to Germanwings parent company Lufthansa in 1991. Powered by a pair of CFM International CFM56-5A1 turbofans, the aircraft had accumulated approximately 58,300 flight hours during 46,700 flights.
In a press conference held in Cologne at 3 p.m. yesterday, Germanwings said that the captain had flown in commercial operations for 10 years, including some 6,000 flight hours on Airbus types.