Black Box Reveals Pilot’s Chilling Silence As Flight 9525 Plunged Into The Alps
The terrifying last words of a pilot who killed all 150 passengers and crew members when he purposefully crashed a plane into the Alps have been made public.
Germanwings flight 9525 was scheduled to make a regular journey to Düsseldorf, Germany, on March 24, 2015, departing Barcelona, Spain.
All 150 passengers and crew members were killed when the plane crashed into the French Alps at 430 mph less than an hour after takeoff.
After an inquiry into the accident, it was determined that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz intentionally caused the crash by locking the pilot out of the cockpit and overriding a system that would have allowed the crew to enter the flight deck in an emergency.
About an hour after the plane’s departure from Barcelona at around 10 AM, first officer Captain Patrick Sondenheimer stepped out of the cockpit to use the lavatory.
Lubitz changed the chosen altitude from 38,000 feet to 100 feet and started a quick drop into the mountains below once Sondenheimer left, locking the door.
Using the aircraft’s black box recorder, an inquiry into the tragedy was able to piece together the last moments of the tragic trip. The plane’s last connection with air traffic control occurred approximately 30 minutes after takeoff.
Lubitz was heard telling Sondenheimer that he was prepared to take over the controls at “any time” in a transcript taken from the plane’s black box.
He then informed the captain, shortly after the aircraft took off, “You can go now.”
About 28 minutes into the flight, Sondenheimer told Lubitz that he was in charge of radio communications before departing, and then he heard the door close.
Then, when Flight 9525 rapidly plummeted, Lubitz took advantage of the situation to alter its altitude right away, ignoring the frantic attempts of air traffic control to contact the aircraft.
Because Lubitz had bypassed the emergency access codes to make sure he was locked in alone, Sondenheimer was heard furiously beating on the door after he was unable to approach the cockpit. Lubitz then stayed silent for the remainder of the flight.
Sondenheimer was heard yelling “open the damn door” as he tried to smash down the door, his desperation growing as the jet continued to drop.
The terrifying sound of terrified passengers yelling before the plane crashed into the mountainside, killing everyone on board, was also captured in the last seconds of the video.
According to the investigation, Lubitz had been experiencing severe melancholy and suicidal thoughts. His doctor had deemed him unsuitable to fly, but he had concealed this information from his company.
Additionally, Lubitz’s ex-girlfriend disclosed that he had previously made a scary, seemingly warning statement about the crime, telling a German newspaper, “One day I will do something that will change the whole system, and then all will know my name and remember it.”
She continued, “I never knew what he meant, but now it makes sense.”
In order to stop future catastrophes of this kind, the disaster led to a revision of the regulations governing pilots being in the cockpit alone.
The idea that Lubitz intentionally caused the catastrophe has been denied by his family, who assert that he had already lost consciousness when the plane crashed.
SkyGo is streaming Germanwings: What Happened on Flight 9525?, a documentary about the tragedy.
