[News] 150 dead after plane crash

Some of you may already heard that yesterday at 10:53 a plane of Lufthansa's Germanwings crashed in the french alps. The plane was on its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. None of the 150 people on board survived that accident, according to Germanwings at least 67 germans, 45 spains and one belgian. Among the passengers were 16 students and 2 teachers of a high school in the small german city of Haltern am See. According to the Liceu opera house in Barcelona two opera singers, Kazakhstan-born Oleg Bryjak and German Maria Radner were also on board. Maria Radner traveled with her husband and her newborn.

Aerial views of the crash side, spoilered for size. All pictures from Spiegel Online
 

Dave

Staff member
Man, I feel for the families. I can't imagine what it would be like to be waiting at the airport, all excited your loved one is coming soon, only to hear about a crash.
 
I read this from another source, and I have no words. It's just too horrifying.

And I've seen enough episodes of the Discovery show "Mayday" to know that when a plane is going down, the pilots are talking CONSTANTLY to do everything up to the final moment to save the plane. That there's just breathing and the sound of screams from the cockpit voice recorder show that this guy put it into the ground deliberately.

:(

I want to know why, but "why" doesn't bring back those people.
 
And I've seen enough episodes of the Discovery show "Mayday" to know that when a plane is going down, the pilots are talking CONSTANTLY to do everything up to the final moment to save the plane. That there's just breathing and the sound of screams from the cockpit voice recorder show that this guy put it into the ground deliberately.
Or that he had an aneurysm/aortic fissure/seizure/whatnot and was unable to do anything/was already dead before the crash.

I mean, I lean far more towards suicide as an explanation, as there was really no good reason to lock the pilot out, but it IS at least possible the guy isn't the mass murdering maniac a bunch of media are already painting him as.
 
it IS at least possible the guy isn't the mass murdering maniac a bunch of media are already painting him as.
Not only did he have to act to keep the pilot out, but he had to turn off autopilot and direct the plane into the ground.

It would not have crashed at all until it ran out of fuel if he did not deliberately aim the plane at a mountain.
 
Or that he had an aneurysm/aortic fissure/seizure/whatnot and was unable to do anything/was already dead before the crash.

I mean, I lean far more towards suicide as an explanation, as there was really no good reason to lock the pilot out, but it IS at least possible the guy isn't the mass murdering maniac a bunch of media are already painting him as.
Him being incapacitated wouldn't have kept the other pilot out, as they have an override code for the door. This means that they can get in if there's nobody there or unconscious, but THAT can be overridden from inside the cockpit, so that if somebody with the code is being coerced, then the pilots can keep them out. So the one inside was CONSCIOUS and AWARE of keeping the other pilot out, as he was flying it into the ground.

And what @stienman said.
 
Just saw a short bit of a press conference with the district attorney of Marseilles. The voice recorder recorded only breathing of the co-pilot, in the last minutes knocking of the locked out pilot and the crew. The last thing to hear are the screams by the passengers.
 
Several of the police groups that I follow on Facebook have been passing around a picture captioned "I don't care about the co-pilot... tell me the name of the hero who was trying to get in. I want to remember HIS name."
 
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