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Pilot reportedly unable to re-enter cockpit before Alps crash

Gman496

Gman496

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One of the pilots on the German Airbus plane that crashed in the French Alps, killing everyone on board, left the cockpit and was unable to return before the plane went down, the New York Times reported tonight, citing evidence from a cockpit voice recorder.

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"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer," an unnamed investigator told the Times.

"And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer."

"You can hear he is trying to smash the door down," the investigator added.

Earlier, a source close to the investigation said helicopters began airlifting the remains of the victims of the crash from the disaster site in the French Alps late this afternoon.

The operation to recover the remains of the 150 passengers and crew killed in the Airbus A320 crash was later called off for the night, the source added.


Source: RTE News
 
cactikid said:
trying to smash door down ,poor lad would need a big battering ram,very sad story.
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Well, if it's true it would, could explain what happened? Pilot leaves cockpit, no access from outside since 911, 2nd pilot in control of plane suffers massive heart attack or whatever, maybe slumps forward putting plane into a dive, pilot outside cockpit can't gain access........... Game over!!!

Scary stuff for sure.
 
wonder are there only 2 crew in cockpit or 3,if thats the case would need 2 inside cockpit at all times.
 
cactikid said:
wonder are there only 2 crew in cockpit or 3,if thats the case would need 2 inside cockpit at all times.
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In times gone by there used to be 3 on long haul flights I think, one was an engineer who sat to the rear of the two pilots but that was done away with.

If it does turn out to be what happened? they'll have to introduce a new rule whereby a pilot can only leave the cockpit if one of the air hostesses enters the cockpit and remains there until the pilot returns?
 
This is the article on the New York Times


Germanwings Pilot Was Locked Out of Cockpit Before Crash in France

By NICOLA CLARK and DAN BILEFSKY MARCH 25, 2015

As officials struggled Wednesday to explain why a jet with 150 people on board crashed in relatively clear skies, an investigator said evidence from a cockpit voice recorder indicated one pilot left the cockpit before the plane’s descent and was unable to get back in.

A senior military official involved in the investigation described “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots during the early part of the flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. Then the audio indicated that one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not re-enter.

“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,” the investigator said. “And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”

He said, “You can hear he is trying to smash the door down.”

While the audio seemed to give some insight into the circumstances leading up to the Germanwings crash, it also left many questions unanswered.

"We don’t know yet the reason why one of the guys went out,” said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing. "But what is sure is that at the very end of the flight, the other pilot is alone and does not open the door."

The data from the voice recorder seems only to deepen the mystery surrounding the crash and provides no indication of the condition or activity of the pilot who remained in the cockpit. The descent from 38,000 feet over about 10 minutes was alarming but still gradual enough to indicate that the twin-engine Airbus A320 had not been damaged catastrophically . At no point during the descent was there any communication from the cockpit to air traffic controllers or any other signal of an emergency.

When the plane plowed into craggy mountains northeast of Nice, it was traveling with enough speed that it was all but pulverized, killing the 144 passengers and crew of six and leaving behind almost no apparent clues about what caused the crash.

The French aviation authorities have made public very little, officially, about the nature of the information that has been recovered from the audio recording, and it was not clear whether it was partial or complete. France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analyses confirmed only that human voices and other cockpit sounds had been detected and would be subjected to detailed analysis.

Asked about the new evidence revealed in the cockpit recordings, Martine del Bono, a bureau spokeswoman, declined to comment.
 
Very sad, it's either a medical condition or suicide. Hopefully the former. I'm guessing the other guy left to take a slash or something. Mad though that they can't access it again.
 
I was listening to an expert late last night who claimed that even though those flight deck doors are physically battleproof since 911, both pilots are in possession of a code that will allow access from the outside in the event of an emergency. He also said that there is however an override option from within the cockpit to deactivate that code in the event the cockpit becomes threatened from outside.

So let's look again at what we do know.

The aviation authorities did say that the decent of that aircraft was slightly faster but not exceptionally faster than a normal decent & concluded that it had to be a controlled decent. If it was a controlled decent and the pilot on the outside of the cockpit was unable to open that door with his code, what can one conclude from that set of circumstances?
 
The latest I've heard is that the co-pilot crashed the plane on purpose. Why? No one seems to know yet.

Authorities have stated that it would be almost impossible for the co-pilot to accidentally crash the plane due to some type of medical emergency or condition.

All those lives lost, it's heart breaking.
 
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