Police search house of Flight 4U952 co-pilot who murdered 149 people onboard doomed plane
POLICE have searched the home of co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, as they hunt for clues as to what led the "experienced" airman to deliberately crash the Germanwings jet in to the Alps.
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German authorites are pictured carrying large cardboard boxes and a computer from a house believed to belong to the parents of Mr Lubitz in Montabaur.
The co-pilot deliberately "accelerated the descent" of the plane that crashed earlier this week, authorities said.
As details continue to unfold about the crew and the final moments of flight 4U9525, schoolmates of the co-pilot have claimed in German newspaper that he took a break from flight training in 2009 as he was suffering from mental health problems.
A mother of a schoolmate of Mr Lubitz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he had told her daughter that he had taken a break from his pilot training because he was suffering from "burn-out" syndrome.
Described by acquaintances as quiet but friendly, the 28-year-old began to dream of flying as a child in his home town of Montabaur, in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of western Germany.
It was there that he joined the LSC Westerwald flying club and obtained his glider pilot's licence as a teenager before being training as a Lufthansa pilot in Bremen.
Mr Lubitz was employed as a flight attendant when he first attempted to become a pilot in 2008 after waiting for eight months, but did not start working as a first officer for Lufthansa until September 2013.
But mystery surrounds a six-year interruption in Mr Lubitz's flight training.
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The German carrier's chief executive, Carsten Spohr, said: "The co-pilot interrupted his training for six years, I would be interested to know why.
"I cannot tell you anything about the reasons of this interruption, but anybody who interrupts the training has to do a lot of tests so the competence and fitness would be checked again."
Earlier, French prosecutors said the aircraft's Captain - who is not being blamed for the crash - had left the cockpit and was then prevented from reentering by Mr Lubitz.
Speaking at a press conference in Marseille, prosecutor Brice Robin said the passengers were only aware of the incident moments before the crash, when screams could be heard on the cockpit's audio recording.
"We hear the pilot ask the co-pilot to take control of the plane and we hear at the same time the sound of a seat moving backwards and the sound of a door closing," Mr Robin told reporters.
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"At that moment, the co-pilot is controlling the plane by himself.
"While he is alone, the co-pilot presses the buttons of the flight monitoring system to put into action the descent of the aeroplane.
"This action on the altitude controls can only be deliberate."
Prosecutor Robin explained that it was impossible to lock the door by accident and it was impossible to put the plane into such a steep dive by accident
Reports suggested there was a "violent struggle" between the two airmen, who were "shouting at each other" moments before impact.
The co-pilot is believed to have been alive at the moment the plane hit the side of the mountain at 500mph.
Reports also emerged overnight that the co-pilot was locked out of the cockpit and tried to smash down the door.
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The two airmen were said to have fought to open and close the door, with a chair used at one stage to try and prevent access to the cockpit.
Evidence from the plane's voice recorder revealed that one of the pilots desperately tried to break down the cockpit door in the moments before the horror crash.
Mr Robin added the investigation was currently an involuntary homicide but that was likely to change to a voluntary homicide – effectively a mass murder probe.
He said Mr Lubitz, who was a German national and perfectly able to fly the plane on his own, was alone at the controls when the plane crashed and had activated the descent button.
He added: “Data from the cockpit suggests he was breathing normally and had not passed out, he was conscious.
He said Mr Lubitz, who was a German national and perfectly able to fly the plane on his own, was alone at the controls when the plane crashed and had activated the descent button.
He added: “Data from the cockpit suggests he was breathing normally and had not passed out, he was conscious.
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“We currently have an involuntary homicide but given that a voluntary action appears to have downed this plane that is likely to change.
“To go from 12,000 meters to 2000 meters you need to give a particular lever several deliberate turns.
“There is no doubt that this was a voluntary action. To refuse entrance to the cockpit and start to reduce altitude at 1000 meters per minute as if he was coming into land.
“At no point have we considered this a terrorist attack."
“To go from 12,000 meters to 2000 meters you need to give a particular lever several deliberate turns.
“There is no doubt that this was a voluntary action. To refuse entrance to the cockpit and start to reduce altitude at 1000 meters per minute as if he was coming into land.
“At no point have we considered this a terrorist attack."
The pilots had been having "very smooth, very cool" conversation during the flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, a senior military official said.
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But then one left the cockpit and was unable to get back in, the New York Times reported.
“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,” an unnamed investigator revealed.
“And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”
He added: “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down."
It is not yet known why the pilot left the cockpit or what happened to the one left in control of the plane.
Germanwings has so far refused to confirm the names of the pilots, with the company tweeting that it wanted to "honour their privacy".
However a Lufthansa spokesman told German newspaper Bild that Mr Lubitz had been employed at the airline since September 2013.
"He had 630 hours of flying experience and prior to that worked at Lufthansa's flight training school," he added.
In September 2013 it was announced that Lubitz had been included in the Federal Aviation Administration's prestigious FAA Airmen Certification Database.
Certified pilots included on the American aviation authority's database "have met or exceeded the high educational, licensing and medical standards established by the FAA".
Announcing the certificate, Aviation Business Gazette wrote: "FAA pilot certification can be the difference between a safe flight and one that ends in tragedy."
Neighbours who had seen Mr Lubitz grow up in Montabaur said he had showed no signs of depression when they saw him last autumn.
One told the German newspaper Rhein-Zeitung: "His big dream was to become a pilot. He pursued and achieved this goal with vigour."
The co-pilot was friendly, the neighbour told the newspaper.
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She added: "We often saw him go jogging past the house."
Meanwhile, asked if Mr Lubitz had a terrorist background, a German interior ministry spokesman told Bild: "According to our current information he has no such background."
The newspaper reports the captain was the father of two children and had flown for over ten years for Lufthansa and Germanwings.
The German pilots union said they will not comment on the tragedy until after a press conference scheduled by the plane's operator for 1.30pm GMT.
Speaking this morning, Lufthansa's CEO, Carsten Spohr, said: "Safety in aviation is not a given, it is something that we have top work hard for every day and every night.
In a video on Twitter, he added: "Something happened that we worked so hard against that it would never hit us.
"Our thoughts and prayers at this very moment are with the relatives of the passengers and crew members that lost their lives."
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Four specialist officers from Interpol, the international police organisation, have joined the investigation as French detectives continue to piece together information surrounding the crash.
The worrying development comes after aviation experts expressed fears the mystery crash could have been caused by a lack of cabin oxygen.
Ex-pilot Eric Moody said a major incident must have occurred on board as the pilots were not "thinking straight" after the Airbus A320 plunged into the French Alps at 500mph on Tuesday.
The 73-year-old pilot listed oxygen deprivation, depressurisation - or even "a knife in the throat" - as potential causes of the crash.
Other reports have suggested the cockpit's windscreen gave way, incapacitating the pilots and rendering them unable to send a distress call.
Germanwings flight 4U9525, from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, crashed after an eight-minute rapid descent, killing all 144 passengers and six crew.
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But while a spokesman for the French air investigation bureau, the BEA, said that "usable" material had been extracted from the cockpit voice recorder covering the entire flight, he would not give details of conversations, if any, between the pilots.
Asked about reports that the second black box - the flight data recorder which indicates how an aircraft's systems were working - had been found but was too badly damaged to be of use, the spokesman said this was not the case.
"We have not located the second black box," he said.
GETTYSource:www. exores.co.uk.
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