'Not in our worst nightmares': Germanwings reacts to revelation that co-pilot crashed plane
The airline that owned the crashed flight in which 150 people died has said it goes beyond their worst nightmare that the co-pilot deliberately crashed the plane.
Prosecutors have concluded that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately put the Airbus A320 Germanwings plane into a sharp descent for up to 10 minutes. It impacted with the mountains below at a speed of 700km per hour.
Asked if Lubitz ,28, had a terrorist background, a German interior ministry spokesman told the Bild newspaper: "According to our current information he has no such background."
"Not in our worst nightmare could we imagine something like this happening,” said Germanwings following the description of the French Alps crash plane’s last moments.
Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told a press conference: "My ladies and gentlemen after the analysis of the voice recorder of our tragic flight, there has been a new tragic turn.
“We have to, and I think we speak for everyone, we have to accept that a plane was crashed on purpose presumably by the by co-pilot of the plane.
“The recording and voice recorder leave us to assume the captain left the cabin for a short period of time and could not return unfortunately.
“It seems to be true the colleague who remained denied him access back to the cockpit in order to start the fatal descent into the French Alps.”
“I have to say it leaves us speechless here at Germanwings and Lufthansa, I can only repeat what I said over the last few days, we are deeply shocked, and were not able to imagine this situation could get any worse.
“In our industry since the events of 9/11 the access to cockpits was changed, the doors have been reinforced so that access is not possible so that the door cannot be opened even by weapons.
“When one pilot leaves the cockpit for biological reasons, he can ring a bell, there are screens to detect who this person is. If this is a colleague or someone from the crew there is a button you can press and the door will open.
“If no one reacts the door will open automatically, this can be impeded by those in the cockpit by pressing a lock lever and closing the door for five minutes.”
“The co-pilot interrupted his training six years, I would be interested to know why.
“I cannot tell you anything about the reasons of this interruption, but I told you before that anybody interrupts the training has to do a lot of tests so the competence and fitness would be checked again.”
