The co-pilot named in the Germanwings plane crash was Andreas Guenter Lubitz.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old was from Montabaur, a town in the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, according to a local flight club.<\/p>\n
Acquaintances said he was in his late 20s and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last autumn.<\/p>\n
“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said a member of a glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched him learn to fly.<\/p>\n
“He gave off a good feeling.”<\/p>\n
Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot’s license as a teenager and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said.<\/p>\n
His Facebook page lists his interests, including German electronica band Schiller, French superstar DJ David Guetta, his local Burger King, 10-pin bowling, aviation humour and a technical website about the A320 model of aircraft he flew into a mountainside.<\/p>\n
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said the co-pilot “never said a word” in the 10 minutes before the crash, which killed 150 people.<\/p>\n
He said he never answered a question or opened the door before the plane hit the ground and the plane’s descent was “voluntary”.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration praised Lubitz’s skills and included him in the prestigious FAA Airmen Certification Database.<\/p>\n
The database contains the names certified pilots who have “met or exceeded the high educational, licensing and medical standards established by the FAA”.<\/p>\n
Aviation Business Gazette announced the award in September 2013, writing: “Pilot certification standards have evolved over time in an attempt to reduce pilot errors that lead to fatal crashes.<\/p>\n
He had undertaken 630 hours of flight time in an A320, according to Germany’s Bild.<\/p>\n
Mr Brice said earlier that co-pilot Lubitz directed the plane into the ground but the passengers only realised what was happening “in the last moments”.<\/p>\n
“He took this action, for reasons we still don’t know why,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We can only deduce he destroyed the plane. He voluntarily allowed the plane to lose altitude.<\/p>\n
“I think the victims only realised at the last moment because on the recording you only hear the screams on the last moments.”<\/p>\n
Source: The Mirror<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The co-pilot named in the Germanwings plane crash was Andreas Guenter Lubitz. The 28-year-old was from Montabaur, a town in the district seat of the Westerwaldkreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, according to a local flight club. Acquaintances said he was in his late 20s and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last autumn. … Continue reading “Co-pilot had no death wish say friends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[11312,11317,11309,7813,2508],"class_list":["post-18234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-alps","tag-andreas-guenter-lubitz","tag-germanwings","tag-plane-crash","tag-suicide"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18236,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18234\/revisions\/18236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}