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THE GERMANWINGS CO-PILOT who crashed his Airbus in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, told his ex-girlfriend that “one day everyone will know my name”, according to German newspaper Bild.
In an interview, the 26-year-old flight attendant known as Maria W told Bild that when she heard about the crash she recalled Andreas Lubitz telling her last year: “One day I’m going to do something that will change the whole system, and everyone will know my name and remember.”
The black box voice recorder indicates that Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials say, in what appears to have been a case of suicide and mass killing.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that all the signs were “pointing towards an act that we can’t describe: criminal, crazy, suicidal”.
German prosecutors revealed that searches of Lubitz’s homes netted “medical documents that suggest an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment”, including “torn-up and current sick leave notes, among them one covering the day of the crash”.
They did not specify the illness.
According to Bild, the young woman, who was “very shocked”, flew with Lubitz on European flights for five months last year, during which time they are believed to have been romantically involved.
If Lubitz did deliberately crash the plane, “it is because he understood that because of his health problems, his big dream of a job at Lufthansa, as captain and as a long-haul pilot was practically impossible”, she told Bild.
The pair separated “because it became increasingly clear that he had a problem”, she told the daily, adding that at night he would wake up and scream “we’re going down” and was plagued by nightmares.
Bild earlier reported that Lubitz sought psychiatric help for “a bout of serious depression” in 2009 and was still getting assistance from doctors, quoting documents from Germany’s air transport regulator.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that Lubitz had suspended his pilot training, which began in 2008, “for a certain period”, before restarting and qualifying for the Airbus A320 in 2013.
€50,000 per passenger
Half of the 150 victims of Tuesday’s disaster were German, with Spain accounting for at least 50 and the remainder composed of more than a dozen other nationalities.
Germanwings said yesterday it had offered the victims’ families “up to 50,000 euros per passenger” towards their immediate costs.
The assistance, which the families would not be required to pay back, was separate from the compensation that the airline will likely have to pay over the disaster, a Germanwings spokesman told AFP.
A religious ceremony is taking place this morning in the nearby town of Digne-les-Bains, police said.
Lubitz lived with his parents in his small home town of Montabaur in the Rhineland and kept an apartment in Duesseldorf, the city where his plane was bound from Barcelona.
Duesseldorf prosecutors said the evidence found in the two homes “backs up the suspicion” that Lubitz “hid his illness from his employer and his colleagues”.
They said they had not found a suicide note, confession or anything pointing to a “political or religious” motive but added it would take “several days” to evaluate the rest of what was collected.
Reiner Kemmler, a psychologist who specialises in training pilots, noted that people “know that depression can compromise their airworthiness and they can hide it”.
“If someone dissimulates, ie they don’t want other people to notice, it’s very, very difficult,” Kemmler told Deutschlandfunk public radio.
Desperate captain used ‘axe’
Lubitz locked himself into the cockpit when the captain went out to use the toilet, then refused his colleague’s increasingly desperate entreaties to reopen the door, French prosecutor Brice Robin said.
According to Bild, the captain even tried using an axe to hack through the armoured door as the plane was sent into its fatal descent by Lubitz.
The tragedy has prompted a shake-up of airline safety rules.
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) recommended Friday that at least two people be present in the cockpit of planes at all times, which is the standard in the United States.
German authorities agreed to the rule for Lufthansa, its subsidiary Germanwings and other companies.
Authorities in Germany, Austria and Portugal also announced that they would be requiring the adoption of the so-called “rule of two”, which has been backed by Air France, KLM, Britain’s easyJet, Brussels Airlines and Norwegian Air Shuttle, among other airlines.
Ireland’s Ryanair, Finland’s Finnair and Spanish carrier Iberia already adhere to the rule.
Meanwhile, the UN world aviation body stressed that all pilots must have regular mental and physical check-ups.
In the northwestern town of Haltern, which lost 16 students and two teachers on the flight, news that the co-pilot had apparently acted deliberately caused shock and anger.
German President Joachim Gauck, a Protestant pastor, attended a memorial service in the town Friday.
Meanwhile in Montabaur, Mayor Edmund Schaaf urged reporters camped out in the community to show restraint towards Lubitz’s parents, a banker and a church organist who live on a leafy, normally quiet street.
“Regardless of whether the accusations against the co-pilot are true, we sympathise with his family and ask the media to be considerate,” he said.
Investigators say Lubitz’s intention was clear because he operated a button sending the plane into a plunge.
For the next eight minutes, Lubitz was apparently calm and breathing normally.
The second-in-command had passed all psychological tests required for training, Lufthansa’s Spohr told reporters Thursday.
Recovery operations at the remote crash site were still ongoing, with French officials continuing to comb the mountain for body parts and evidence.
The plane’s second black box, which records flight data, has not yet been recovered.
- © AFP 2015.
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That’s a manky looking breakfast roll.
Which makes it different how from every other breakfast roll?
I know, feckin’ great isn’t it?
Because it looks like somwone sat on it and the bread looks horrible
its not a lot,but at least their is something left that is Irish,i will make a point of buying these products in the future.
So just because it’s Irish even if it’s an inferior item you will buy it? That’s just stupid.
There is nothing inferior about Irish products made with fair Irish hands. You are a race traitor for suggesting there is. We must support Irish companies in the face of the multiculti genocide being foisted on us by the EU and its hidden masters. We must build Irish indigenous industry that pays its taxes and leave behind the false currency that is the Euro. Modern FIAT currency is the future. When our sovereign currency is worth a tenth of what the Euro is our exports will be so competitive that we will in months reach full employment and will be able to use the Euro and dollars we have been paid for our God to import critical needs. Paul Murphy, TD, sage leader, understands this.
See you have changed your name again you racist plonker – still didn’t get the Irish right though. And it is clear you know as much about economics as the copy paste merchant Coddler O’Toole. Lets print money until we can’t buy anything. Tosser.
‘Ballygowan’s water comes from a spring next to its Co Limerick factory’
AKA a tap.
It’s still better than a tap in the UK owned by Coca Cola.
brings to mind ‘Peckham Spring’ :)
Is Irish water still Irish?
How about an article on quality Irish products sourced in Ireland and manufactured by 100% Irish companies.
Our people are our best brand !
Then why the native exports and foreign imports?
Java Republic have a big glass-walled roastery in Ballycoolin in Dublin – they are a 100% Irish-owned company, owned and run by an almost completely untamed headbanger named David McKernan. They use ethically-sourced raw ingredients and are an exporter of high value-added teas and coffees. The finest brew in the country, yet when I went to Dunnes Stores recently they were gone off the shelves. Not in Tesco or Supervalu either. And I’m running low on stock, down to my last few bags.
?
Yesterday we heard that Lyons Tae is English – today we hear Barry’s is Irish but the raw material comes from Africa. Does the English stuff grow in England?
This is the type of thing where pollsters get all excited about the result but they fail to ask that all important follow up question after they ask ‘are you in favor of x issue’ and that question is ”how high a priority is this issue for you?” when you ask that devastating second question it often renders the first one moot.
We live in a globalized world now. Nationalism and economics don’t mix.
Think back to how ridiculous it was that the Irish state owned a sugar company, imagine that today when sugar is the direct cause of 80% of obesity out there (with pints the next culprit down)
The only nod I’d give to country of origin is meat, to make sure somethings from the EU15, but that’s not nationalism so much as a quality control issue.
Right Ryan, and when our little island has its argi-economy collapse (bringing down everything else) remember what you said here.
Are people in the republic even aware of how much the north contributes to the republics economy in terms of tourism, goods purchased, etc. Please stop this begrudgery to northen businesses as you would be a lot worse off without us…
I’m in New York and I buy imported Kerry Gold Irish butter.
Even the roman empire knew irish butter was the best.
What about the best sauce chef ??
Deep River rock is just tap water put through a filtering process. It doesn’t come form a source like ballygowan (which I’m sure goes through some sort of processing but..) the important difference is ballygowan actually comes from a spring water source.
Where the tap waters comes from, I don’t know, but would be interested to find out.
Can I ask why this article seems to tell people not to buy products from the north.they are from the island of Ireland too after all.. there are a lot of products on sale in the north that come from the republic and nobody begrudges buying them
And Butlers Chocolates are Irish too…..
Ah yes
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