Germanwings pilot ‘practised’ crash

Germanwings pilot ‘practised’ crash

The co-pilot suspected of intentionally crashing a Germanwings plane into the French Alps is believed to have practised the descent on another flight on the same day, according to new evidence.

Preliminary investigation reports reveal co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had practiced entering the fatal descent settings on an outbound flight from Dussledorf to Barcelona and ignored repeated contact attempts from both ground and air hours before the fatal crash which killed all 150 on board, including two Australians, multiple news sites report.

According to the reports, the changes in the autopilot settings, which were mimicked two hours later on doomed flight 4U 9525 in March, went un-noticed because the jet was already in descent.

“I can’t speculate on what was happening inside his head; all I can say is that he changed this button to the minimum setting of 100 feet and he did it several times,” French BEA accident investigation agency director Remi Jouty said, quoted in various news sites.

The findings come after flight data from the aircraft’s black boxes revealed just over 30 seconds after the Captain had left the cockpit Lubitz entered the instruction he had previously rehearsed, putting the plane into a 100 feet autopilot descent, before altering the dial to speed up the jet.

Parent company Lufthansa this week retired the Germanwings brand, and since the crash has faced scrutiny after documents reveal it was aware of Lubitz’s medical condition prior to the incident.

BBC Germanwings
Co-pilot Lubitz believed to have practiced the descent on the outbound flight hours before the fatal crash of flight 4U 9595
Image credit: BBC

 

 

 

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