The name of the co-pilot who intentionally crashed the flight 4U9525 Germanwings plane was Andreas Lubitz. He’s a 28-year from Germany and according to prosecutors he has no ties to terrorism.
Here are the details of what went on in the plane from the prosecutor, who say the pilot went to the bathroom and it was at that time the co-pilot locked him out and began a descent to crash the plane:
Here are more details:
THE STAR – Andreas Lubitz, the German co-pilot accused of killing 150 people by deliberately crashing an Airbus into the French Alps, had never been flagged as a terrorist, a French prosecutor said.
“Nothing to suggest this was a terrorist act,” Marseilles prosecutor Brice Robin said on Thursday.
Robin refused to give details on the 28-year-old pilot’s religion or ethnic background, saying: “I don’t think it’s necessarily what we should be looking for.”
Lubitz had a longtime love of flying, according to the LSC flying club in his native Germany.
“Andreas became a member of the club as a youth to fulfil his dream of flying,” the LSC club said in a death notice on its website.
“He fulfilled his dream, the dream he now paid for so dearly with his life,” the death notice states.
There were police cars Thursday outside his comfortable looking home.
His hometown of Montabaur in the state of Rhineland, Palatinate, Germany issued a statement expressing sympathy for his family, but didn’t give his name.
Lubitz had just 630 professional flying hours with Germanwings and joined the airline immediately after completing his training in September 2013.
He locked the Germanwings airbus’ pilot out of the cockpit before crashing the aircraft into the mountains at 700 km/h on Tuesday.
His breathing was normal as he steered the aircraft into the mountains, indicating he was conscious and in control.
“The co-pilot manipulated the flight monitoring system to voluntarily start descent of the plane,” Robin said. “He did it in a voluntarily way. We could hear appeals from the pilot to access the cockpit, but no response from the cockpit.”
He “had no reason to do it,” Robin said.
Robin said passengers on the doomed Germanwings flight could be heard screaming just before the crash.
They are saying at this point they have no idea what his motive could have been, but I suspect we’ll learn more about this in the coming days.