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Germanwings co-pilot 'researched suicide methods in days before crash' Germanwings co-pilot 'researched suicide methods in days before crash'
(about 2 hours later)
Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot believed to have deliberately crashed Germanwings flight 9525, undertook online research into cockpit doors and suicide methods in the days leading up to the crash, Düsseldorf prosecutors said. Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot believed to have deliberately crashed flight 4U9525 last week, did online research into cockpit doors and suicide methods in the days leading up to the crash, according to Düsseldorf prosecutors.
The development came as French prosecutors said the second black box from the plane had been found after a nine-day search. 150 people died in the crash. As French investigators announced they had found the second black box recorder from the wrecked plane, Ralf Herrenbrück, the German prosecutors’ press spokesman, said the a tablet computer found in the co-pilot’s flat had been analysed.
In a statement released on Thursday, the German investigators said they had analysed a tablet computer found in the co-pilot’s flat. “The browser history had not been deleted, in particular search terms called up using this device in the time from 16 March to 23 March 2015 could be reconstructed,” Thursday’s statement from Herrenbrück said.
“The browser history had not been deleted. Search terms called up … in the time from 16 March to 23 March 2015 could be reconstructed,” the statement read. “According to these, the user was on the one hand looking into medical treatments, and on the other learning about the different methods and possibilities of committing suicide.” “According to these, the user was, on the one hand, looking into medical treatments and, on the other, learning about the different methods and possibilities of committing suicide.”
On at least one day, the statement added, Lubitz had spent several minutes entering search terms about cockpit doors and their security arrangements. On at least one day, according to the statement, Lubitz had spent several minutes entering search terms about cockpit doors and their security arrangements.
Prosecutors said the username, personal correspondence, and search terms found on the tablet all appeared to confirm that the device belonged to Lubitz. The user name, personal correspondence and search terms found on the tablet all appeared to confirm that the device belonged to Lubitz, Herrenbrück said. He added that they would not be releasing the exact search terms used and that the device was still being examined.
They added that they would not be releasing the exact search terms used, and that the device was still being examined. At a press conference in France, the second since the crash, French public prosecutor Brice Robin confirmed that the second black box, the digital flight data recorder (DFDR) had been found.
“The second black box, the DFDR, was found by a female gendarme from Chamonix,” he said.
“This box was the same colour as the rock. It was found to the left of a ravine that had already searched but it was embedded. It had to be dug out. It had obviously been in the fire, because it is charred, however, its general state leads us to hope there is a possibility that it can be exploited.”
Robin said the DFDR would normally contain 500 registered flight recordings, of speed, altitude, motors and other technical data that he said were “vital ... for finding out the truth” of the Airbus A320 crash.
The flight recorder was flown to Paris on Thursday evening to be sent for examination by experts at the French air accident investigation bureau (BEA).
Related: 'Germanwings passenger video' is authentic, says French magazineRelated: 'Germanwings passenger video' is authentic, says French magazine
Based on information from the cockpit voice recorder, investigators believe the 27-year-old Lubitz locked his captain out of the A320’s cockpit on 24 March and deliberately crashed the plane, killing everyone on board. “It will give us all the details of the flight itself from its departure from Barcelona to the crash and, above all, the actions of the pilot,” Robin said. “It will tell us if there was only one pilot operating at the time of the crash ... it’s a complement to us understanding the final minutes of this flight.”
French prosecutors, meanwhile, said the second black box from the Germanwings jet – the data recorder that contains readings for nearly every instrument on the plane – had been found. Robin said the evidence appeared to confirm that Lubitz was alive and conscious right until the end and had acted twice in response to two speed alarms.
Investigators were also examining cellphones found in the debris of the jet crash for clues about what happened. A French reporter who says he saw such cellphone video described the sound of “screaming and screaming” as the plane flew full-speed into a mountain. The prosecutor said 40 mobile telephones had been found in the wreckage, all of them in a “very bad state”. This information came 24 hours after Paris Match magazine claimed it had seen a video from a mobile phone sim card made by a passenger in the final moments of the doomed flight.
No video or audio from the cellphones of the 150 people on board the plane has been released publicly. On Thursday, Lieut Col Jean-Marc Menichini told the Associated Press that search teams had found cellphones but they had not yet been thoroughly examined. Robin told journalists that search teams had found 2,285 DNA strands giving 150 different “profiles”.
Questions persist about journalist Frederic Helbert’s reports this week in the French magazine Paris-Match and in German tabloid Bild about the video that he says he saw. Helbert has vigorously defended his reports. “This doesn’t mean we have identified all the 150 victims and I stress this point. We have to compare this postmortem DNA with the DNA of these people before they died provided by the families. This work will begin as soon as possible next week.
Mountain troops continued searching the area on Thursday for personal belongings and the second black box flight recorder. “At each identification, the victim’s family will be notified, I promise that,” he said.
Helbert said he viewed the video thanks to an intermediary close to the investigation, but did not have a copy himself. The publications chose not to release the video, he said, “because it had no value regarding the investigation but it could have been something terrible for families”. However, he warned that the return of body parts could only happen when all 150 victims had been identified and following a meeting of all the legal, civil and judicial authorities
The video was shot from the back of the plane, he said. “You cannot see their faces, but you can hear them screaming and screaming. “The box will answer the question: did he go right to the end on automatic pilot, or did got manual and pilot the plane right to impact,” Jean Serrat told BFMTV. “I don’t think it’s going to tell us anything we don’t already know, but it removes the last possible doubts.”
No one is moving or getting up.What was awful, what is imprinted in my memory, is the sound.” Related: Andreas Lubitz's hometown condemns rush to judge Germanwings co-pilot
“People understand something terrible is going to happen,” he added. There has been growing public anger in Germany about some of the media coverage of the crash.
Related: Germanwings co-pilot was treated for suicidal tendencies After a pupil at the Joseph-König high school in Haltern wrote a blog post complaining of the press siege outside her school, the organisers of a vintage plane air show posted an open letter, addressed to an unnamed press agency, in which it explained why it would not answer the request for footage that might contain images of Lubitz. The letter described mass-media coverage as “serving low voyeurism and generating circulation through horror”.
Germanwings, meanwhile, said on Thursday it was unaware that Lubitz had suffered from depression during his pilot training. German airline Lufthansa confirmed on Tuesday that it knew six years ago that Lubitz had suffered from an episode of “severe depression” before he finished his flight training. On Thursday, German politicians attempted to show they were taking action to improve safety and security in the aftermath of the crash.
“We didn’t know this,” said Vanessa Torres, a spokeswoman for Lufthansa subsidiary Germanwings, which hired Lubitz in September 2013. She could not explain why Germanwings was not aware of the depression when its parent company Lufthansa was. The transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, announced a new regular taskforce for optimising flight safety. Following a meeting with representatives of the airline industry association BDL and the civil aviation authority, he said the taskforce would re-examine cockpit door mechanisms and the medical and psychological tests for pilots.
Germany also announced the creation of an expert task force to examine what went wrong in the Germanwings crash and consider whether changes are needed to cockpit doors or pilot procedures for passing medicals. It will also discuss the question of recognising psychological problems. The interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said it was time to review European Union regulations for passport checks inside the Schengen area. “We need to know for security reasons who is on board a flight,” he told Bild newspaper. “At first, it wasn’t even clear who was on board the flight.”
Any conclusions will be shared with international air safety organisations. France’s air accident investigation agency has already said it will examine cockpit entry and psychological screening procedures. The comments were immediately condemned by opposition politicians. “A pure placebo reaction to a human tragedy,” Green party MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht told Der Spiegel magazine.