This Tuesday, a flight of the German low-cost airline Germanwings taking passengers from Barcelona, Spain to Düsseldorf, Germany crashed in the French Alps, killing 150 passenger and crew aboard.
According to reports, although the plane was an old one, there were no technical problems with it. The latest news are shocking; based on the recordings of the black box, the plane was deliberately flown into the mountain by the co-pilot of Germanwings, 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz. During the last eight minutes of the flight, the co-pilot “voluntarily” carried out actions that led to the destruction of the aircraft.
After the pilot went out to the toilet, leaving the co-pilot alone in the cockpit, he could never return, he was locked out of it and tried unsuccessfully to bash his way back in. “We heard several calls from the flight commander asking for access to the cockpit. There was a visual and audio interphone and he identified himself. There was no response from the co-pilot.” – Brice Robin, a French public prosecutor, said at a press conference in Marseille. There have been no news about a possible terrorist attack, so the word “suicide” is used a lot to describe the co-pilot’s inexplicable action, but another one, “murder” is more applicable, no doubt. After searching Lubitz’s two homes, it was found that the co-pilot probably suffered from depression and has also been under a treatment of some sort.
photo:web.de
The victims of the tragedy are from 18 countries, including travelers from Australia, Argentina, Iran, the United States and Venezuela, but Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Israel, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom had one passenger apiece, too. There was a group of high school exchange students among the victims as well, heading home after a week in Barcelona.
Our hearts go out to the family of the victims.
photo:independent.co.uk