Tragedy In France
Smaller planes are more prone to crashes, but scheduled commercial flights have nearly zero accidental fatal crashes per year.
On Tuesday, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed unexpectedly into the southern French Alps. All 144 passengers and 6 crew are presumed dead as rescue crews dangerously attempt to investigate the crash. The plane dropped from 38,000 feet to 6,175 feet in less than 10 minutes before disappearing from French radar. The pilots did not send out any distress calls, nor did they respond to any sent from the ground. Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says, “There was a deliberate attempt to destroy the aircraft.” The rapid descent of the plane in its final minutes could only have been done deliberately.
The big question everyone is asking now is, why was one of the pilots locked out of the cockpit before the crash? As of Wednesday, this is the big discovery that has everyone wondering what the co-pilot was doing alone in the cockpit. A senior military officer investigating the tragedy explains that you can hear the pilot attempting to smash down the door in the audio recording. There is tons of speculation around what caused the plane to crash from there being a possible medical emergency with the pilots, the pilots being incapacitated by the rapid depressurization of the drop in altitude, or the pilot left alone in the cockpit made this a suicide mission.
The flight from Barcelona, Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany had victims ranging from 18 different countries, including two Americans. Search teams are struggling to get to the crash site because there are no direct routes to it. Airliner pieces and human remains are spread all over for several hundred meters. Due to freezing weather in the French Alps, airlifts of debris and victims is proving to be a struggle.
Wednesday revolved around retrieving the black boxes and learning more about the crash. The black boxes with the flight data recorders have been found but the first black boxes data recorder is damaged, however not beyond repair and the second black boxes data recorder is missing. The two data recorders are crucial in figuring out what caused the plane to crash and hopefully answer other questions.
In recent developments this morning, it was revealed that the co-pilot was 28-year-old Andreas Lubitz. It has been concluded that Lubitz started the descent of the plane and deliberately caused the unfortunate peril of the plane and passengers. These are preliminary conclusions from the investigation but it has also been revealed that Lubitz refused to open the door to the cockpit. Many questions are now revolving around Lubitz and his religion, which is unknown at this time. The co-pilot was not on any terrorism lists and was a German national.
Most recently, Robin announced that the bodies will not be released to the families until DNA tests are done. Robin states it perfectly: “When you are responsible for 150 people, I don’t call it a suicide.” The peculiar case has everyone on the edge of their seats waiting to hear what happens next. The tragedy will not be forgotten but now we wait for the investigation to continue and for new answers to be discovered. Stay tuned to all media outlets for more on this intriguing catastrophe.