crash site
© www.dailymail.co.ukRescue teams sift through the wreckage of Germanwings plane.
The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings Airbus A320 locked his captain out of the cockpit before deliberately crashing into a mountain to 'destroy the plane', it was sensationally revealed today.

French prosecutor Brice Robin gave further chilling details of the final ten minutes in the cockpit before the Airbus A320 plunged into the French Alps killing 150 people. Revealing data extracted from the black box voice recorder, he said the co-pilot - named as 28-year-old German Andreas Günter Lubitz - locked his captain out after the senior officer left the cockpit. At that point, Lubitz uses the flight monitoring system to put the plane into a descent - something that can only be done manually.

Mr Robin said: 'The intention was to destroy the plane. Death was instant. The plane hit the mountain at 700km per hour.

'I don't think that the passengers realised what was happening until the last moments because on the recording you only hear the screams in the final seconds'. The captain - named by local media as German father-of-two Patrick S - can then be heard asking for access to which he gets no response. He knocks and asks him to open and then starts banging furiously when he receives no reply.


Mr Brice said Lubitz 'voluntarily' refused to open the door and his breathing was normal throughout the final minutes of the flight. He said: 'His breath was not of somebody who was struggling. He never said a single word. It was total silence in the cockpit for the ten past minutes. Nothing.'

Mr Robin said he had no known links with terrorism, adding: 'There is no reason to suspect a terrorist attack.' And asked whether he believed the crash that killed 150 people was the result of suicide, he said: 'People who commit suicide usually do so alone... I don't call it a suicide.' He said the co-pilot's responses, initially courteous, became 'curt' when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing of the Germanwings flight.

voice recorder
© www.businessinsider.comCockpit voice recorder of flight 4U9525.
The revelations came after audio files taken from the black box recorder suggested that one of the pilots was forced to try and smash down the door after being unable to enter the flight deck, according to the New York Times.

Experienced pilots today told MailOnline that under normal conditions crew have an emergency access code to enter the cockpit through the locked door. They can only be stopped from using it if whoever is inside the cockpit manually - and intentionally - disables it. The revelation will heighten fears that suicide or a terror attack was the cause of the disaster.

Locks on cockpit doors were introduced throughout the world's airlines in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep terrorists from taking the controls in a hijacking. Tony Newton, a Civil Aviation Authority examiner and commercial pilot with 20 years' experience of flying A320 aircraft, told MailOnline: 'This takes the whole thing off in a different direction. Blocking access requires a deliberate action on behalf of the pilot. It's a pretty dark thing to have happened.'

Cockpit recordings recovered from the crash site indicated one of the seats was pushed back and the door opened and closed.

An unnamed military investigator told the New York Times: 'The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer. And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer. You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.'

A source told AFP news agency that an alarm indicating the proximity to the ground could be heard before the moment of impact. The recording has shed new light on the missing eight minutes from 10.31am when air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilots, who failed to send any distress signal.
Details from the first report submitted by the French to the German government revealed that at 10.31am, the 24-year-old Airbus A320 left its assigned altitude and began dropping towards the ground at a speed of 3,500ft per minute, before smashing into a ravine at 6,200ft. The report said controllers tried three times on an assigned radio frequency to contact the pilots before switching to international emergency channels. No one answered and a French Mirage fighter jet was scrambled.
The pilots have been the focus of the investigation from the outset, yet Germanwings' parent company Lufthansa still refuses to release their identities, not even their age or nationalities. The firm has only confirmed that the captain had 6,000 flying hours and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor.

He was named by Germany's BILD newspaper today as German father-of-two Patrick S, without giving a surname. His co-pilot was named as 28-year-old Andreas Günter Lubitz, who had just 600 hours of flying experience after joining Germanwings in 2013 straight from training. He was, however, highly regarded, having won an award from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013 for his outstanding flying skills. A member of the LSC Westerwald flying club in Montabaur, had a flat in Dusseldorf but also lived in Montabaur where he was raised.

A black ribbon bearing the number of the doomed Germanwings flight he was aboard appeared on his flying club's website on Thursday. A tribute to him read; 'With great dismay, the members of the LSC Westerwald e.V have heard of the crash of Germanwings flight 4U9525. With horror we acknowledge that among the dead is a longtime member of our association.

'Andreas died as First Officer on the tragic flight. As a teenager Andreas joined our club to realise his dream of flying. He started as a glider student and made it to be a pilot on an Airbus A320. It was his dream fulfilled, the dream he so dearly for with his life. The members of the LSC Westerwald mourn Andreas and the other 149 victims of the disaster. Our deepest sympathy goes out to the victims of all nationalities. We will not forget Andreas.'

His name appears in the prestigious FAA Airmen Certification Database.

The database, which appears on the agency's website at www.faa.gov, names Lubitz and other certified pilots who have met or exceeded 'the high educational, licensing and medical standards established by the FAA.'

The FAA said: 'Pilot certification standards have evolved over time in an attempt to reduce pilot errors that lead to fatal crashes. FAA standards, which are set in consultation with the aviation industry and the public, are among the highest in the world. Transportation safety experts strongly recommend against flying with an uncertified pilot. FAA pilot certification can be the difference between a safe flight and one that ends in tragedy.'

A Lufthansa spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny their identities. It is not known which one was locked in the cockpit, however French TV news channel BFMTV is reporting claims that it was the captain at the controls.

The German pilots' union refused to comment on the revelations and said they will not be giving any more information until the next Germanwings press conference at 1.30pm GMT. The Lufthansa flight training school say they have been told to release no information.
Controllers' attempts to contact pilots after radio silence:

Air traffic controllers made several failed attempts to contact the pilots of the doomed Germanwings plane in the minutes after losing radio communication with the cockpit, an air crash report revealed.

Germany's BILD newspaper published on its website details of the first report about the crash which it claims was submitted by the French to the German government after the disaster.

It states: 'Normal operating conditions for the French air traffic control. All technical systems were in normal operation.'

It corroborates earlier reports that contact with the pilots was lost at 10.31am, adding: 'Germanwings 4U9525 leaves its cruising altitude without informing French air traffic control and starts a descent at an average rate of decline observed by radar... of 3,500 feet per minute'.

Air traffic controllers attempted to establish 'wireless connection on the operating frequency which is not answered' by the cockpit, the report says.

Further attempts are made by radio contact on the international emergency frequency, but there was again no response.

At 10.35am, air traffic controllers 'raise the internationally standardized 'emergency level' (DETRESFA distress phase) and contacts the national headquarters of the French search and rescue service.'

One final and attempt is made to contact the pilots on the international emergency frequency a minute later, but that also fails.

The Germanwings flight disappeared from radar at 10.40am at an altitude of around 6,200ft, the report states.

Two minutes later - at 10.42am - air traffic control informs the national headquarters of the French search and rescue service about the loss of the radar target.

Two military helicopters are sent in the direction of the last known location, but are unable to detect the aircraft's emergency transmitter.



The revelations from the cockpit voice recorder has led to speculation that the crash was deliberate - either caused by a suicidal pilot or as a result of terrorist activity. Such possibilities are being considered by Brice Robin, the Marseille Prosecutor, who has opened a criminal enquiry. This theory has been strengthened following revelations about the locking mechanism on the cockpit door which requires deliberate action from inside the flight deck to disable the access code.

Under strengthened security measures introduced after the September 11, 2001 hijackings and attacks, authorisation to open a cockpit door can only come from inside and from a pilot.

Mr Newton told MailOnline: 'When the cockpit door is locked, it is possible for the crew to punch in a code from the outside and gain access, unless the person in the cockpit over-rides it. The person in the cockpit can see them on CCTV trying to get in, and flick the switch to block their request. This is in case an undesirable person outside is trying to gain access. If the person in the cockpit doesn't want you coming in, you're not coming in. In the system used by the majority of airlines, if the pilot passes out in the cockpit, you can always get in.'

Mr Newton said there have been examples of pilots committing suicide by crashing their planes, notably the Egypt Air Crash in 1999 and the Silk Air disaster in 1997. He added: 'And then there is obviously 9/11, which was for ideological reasons.

'It is almost certainly either ideological or the result of depression. It's too early to say for sure, but the options are narrowing. Outside of that, there would have to be significant new information for us to draw a different conclusion. It's a pretty dark thing to have happened.' Another aviation expert told AFP: 'If the pilots did not stop the airplane from flying into the mountains, it is because they were unconscious or dead, or they had decided to die, or they were forced to die.'

The cockpit door also has several other safety features in case of a sudden decompression which will cause the door to open. This could rule out a scenario where the pilot locked the door as a safety precaution because of a structural failure in the cockpit which caused a drop in oxygen levels.

A spokesman for the BEA, France's accident investigation office, would not comment on the revelations last night. Earlier in the day, BEA spokesman Remi Jouty confirmed voices could be heard on the damaged voice recorder, which covered the flight 'from departure to crash'. But they warned that it could take 'days, weeks and even months' before analysts were able to determine exactly what it being said or what the noises are. The cockpit voice recorder is designed to store two hours of conversation and withstand impacts of as much as 3,400 times the force of gravity.

The breakthrough in the investigation came as bereaved families began arriving from Spain and Germany near the remote mountainous crash site.

All 150 people on board, including three Britons, died when the Germanwings flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf smashed into the mountains after an eight-minute descent. The Airbus A320 sent no distress signal and the crew failed to respond to ground control's desperate attempts to make contact.

The cockpit recording showed the pilots speaking normally in German at the start of the flight, the source said, adding that it could not be determined if it was the captain or the first officer who left the cockpit.

In a statement overnight, Germanwings said that 'at the moment, we do not have information from competent authorities to confirm this story. We are doing everything to get the most information possible and we are not engaging in speculation.'

Authorities have said they have no explanation as yet for the tragedy, but said that the plane was still flying when it crashed into the mountain and did not explode mid-air.

On Wednesday, the head of France's BEA crash investigation agency head Remi Jouty told reporters he still had 'not the slightest explanation' for the tragedy at this stage. 'It is inexplicable,' Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr said in Frankfurt. 'The plane was in perfect condition and the two pilots were experienced.'

Investigators are still hunting for the second black box, which would reveal technical flight data. President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday the casing of this box had been found but not the device itself. France's interior minister has said the probe is not focusing on a possible terror attack.

Meanwhile, families were heading for a hamlet close to the crash site to say a final farewell to their loved ones, at least 51 of whom were Spaniards and at least 72 Germans.

Helicopters began winching the remains of victims, found scattered across the scree-covered slopes, to nearby Seyne-les-Alpes Wednesday, a source close to the investigation told AFP. Authorities on the ground who had the gruesome task of sifting through the debris resumed the search at dawn Thursday. A mountain guide who got near the crash site said he was unable to make out recognisable body parts. 'It's incredible. An Airbus is enormous. When you arrive and there's nothing there... it's very shocking,' said the guide, who did not wish to be identified.

The crash site, which is situated at about 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) altitude, is accessible only by helicopter or an arduous hike on foot. Mr Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew over the site to see the devastation for themselves Wednesday. Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also visited a crisis centre near the scene.

The plane was carrying six crew and 144 passengers, including 16 German teenagers returning home from a school trip, who had reportedly won the trip in a lottery of their classmates.

It was the deadliest air crash on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines plane crashed, killing 346 people.

Lufthansa said the aircraft was carrying citizens of 18 countries. Three Americans and three Britons were confirmed among the victims. Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Holland, Israel, Japan, Mexico and Morocco also had nationals on board, according to officials.