A French prosecutor has revealed that the co-pilot on Germanwings Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps on March 24th killing all 150 people aboard. The co-pilot has been identified as 28-year old German man named Andreas Lubitz.
Recordings from the black box indicate that Lubitz locked the flight captain out of the cockpit and that Lubitz did not respond to his repeated attempts to regain access.
The prosecutor has said there is “no indication” the crash was an act of terrorism. But I wonder how much investigating has been done into Lubitz’s background at this point.
It’s entirely possible that Lubitz had some type of mental breakdown. Indeed, there was speculation that Zaharie Ahmad Shah, the pilot of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, had mental health trouble. It is alleged that Shah also locked out his co-pilot and deliberately crashed the plane. Of course, Flight 370 has never been recovered so we can never definitively know.
Still, when most people commit suicide they usually don’t take 150 other people with them unless they are engaging in terrorism. At this point, I think it is premature to rule out terrorism as a possible motive.
