The copilot of the Germanwings A320 that crashed in France on Tuesday deliberately placed the airplane into a controlled descent while the pilot in command tried to re-enter the cockpit after leaving his seat, according to French authorities. Speaking at a press conference in Marseille on Thursday, French prosecutor Brice Robin said the flight's captain asked the 28-year-old German copilot, Andreas Lubitz, to take control of the aircraft 20 minutes into the flight, while the airplane flew on autopilot at 38,000 feet. The captain then left the cockpit, presumably to use the lavatory, leaving Lubitz in full control. Germanwings is the low-cost subsidiary of German flagcarrier Lufthansa.
Cockpit voice recording indicates that at some point over the next eight minutes, the pilot locked outside the cockpit repeatedly knocked on the door to gain re-entry, without response from the copilot. Robin said the CVR recorded Lubitz breathing in a regular pattern as the airplane descended to around 6,000 feet, until it struck the side of a mountain in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. Just moments before the crash, the CVR recorded the sound of someone trying to kick in the door and screams from passengers in the cabin. Robin concluded that the copilot intended “to destroy the aircraft.”
However, Robin noted that, as of now, prosecutors had uncovered no evidence of terrorist motives, adding that an investigation had begun into the background of the copilot, who lived in the German town of Montabaur, near Frankfurt. According to the LSC Westerwald flying club in Montabaur, Lubitz started flying gliders at the age of 14. He completed his commercial pilot training with Lufthansa's flight school in Bremen, having been recruited in 2008. A Lufthansa spokesperson told German TV station ARD that the airline conducts extensive psychological testing on its pilots as part of the training process.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told a press conference on Thursday that at one point Lubitz had taken a six-month break from his flight training in 2009, but he gave no explanation for this interruption and said that he was unable to disclose whether there had been any medical issues. He indicated that there is no European requirement for airlines to conduct ongoing psychological testing of line pilots. Lufthansa executive board member Thomas Winckelmann added that all pilots in training have to resit all tests, including the psychological test, after any interruption in the training process.
"In our worst nightmare we could not have imagined such as tragedy," said Spohr. "We chose our pilots with great care, we are very proud of our system, which is recognized by every authority in the world. What happened could not be imagined. No system could ever avoid such a one-off event. We are very sad but we are professionals and we will do everything we can to help explain what happened."
German police have searched the house that Lubitz shared with his parents in Montabaur. He also shared the use of an apartment in Düsseldorf.