It has emerged that one of the pilots of the recently crashed Germanwings plane deliberately locked the other and crew out of the cockpit minutes before it crashed into an Alpine mountainside killing 150 people. The deliberate locking of the cockpit has raised questions of foul play—terrorism or suicide being on the lips of people.
According to the New York Times, audio obtained from the black box of the plane suggested that one of the pilots was forced to try and smash down the door after being unable to enter the flight deck for almost 8 minutes before the crash.
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.
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.,” reports MailOnline.
The website adds that; “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. ‘The only reason to keep the door locked and deny the crew access is if you are suspicious that there has been unlawful interference with the flight.’
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.”
This new information has turned the whole ‘crash’ into a new thing—with a possibility of it being deliberate.
I suspect days ago we would have been given the names of deceased crew members but for the fact the co-pilot bearing a name that identifies him as an adherent of the RoP. If it was deliberate “suicide” is the wrong word, it’s mass murder.
suicide? is that what it would be called if the pilot was of arabic background? it would be called hijack with terror attached to it