Germanwings crash: cockpit safety to be reviewed by European commission
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Version 0 of 1. The European commission has set up a special taskforce to review cockpit safety rules after the Germanwings crash in which a co-pilot deliberately set the plane to crash in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board. Related: Germanwings crash: co-pilot practised descent move on previous flight The commission, the executive of the 28-nation EU, said it had asked the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to follow up on a preliminary French report published on Wednesday. “There is a whole series of rules in place but the taskforce is going to look at them and see what more might be needed,” commission spokesman Jakub Adamowicz told a news conference, adding that its first meeting would take place on Thursday in Brussels. The taskforce would examine “the cockpit door-locking system and cockpit access and exit procedures, as well as the criteria and procedures applied to the medical monitoring of pilots”, a statement said. French investigators said on Wednesday that Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the Germanwings plane into the Alps after practising the manoeuvre on the outbound trip from Düsseldorf to Barcelona. On the return leg, Lubitz, 27, locked the cockpit door after the captain, Patrick Sondheimer, left to go to the lavatory and then put the plane into a steep descent. Air traffic controllers in the southern French city of Marseille called the plane 11 times and the air force also tried but without response. The cockpit recorder revealed Sondheimer’s frantic efforts to re-enter the cockpit, which is heavily reinforced to prevent hijackings. |