Woman 'pretended to be family of Germanwings crash victim to get free flights to France'
PUBLISHED : Friday, 10 April, 2015, 1:14pm
UPDATED : Friday, 10 April, 2015, 4:02pm
Associated Press in Berlin
A woman (with no link to the suspected flier) kneels in front of candles and flowers as she prays for the victims of Germanwings Flight 4U9525 at Dusseldorf airport. Photo: Reuters
German police say they are looking into whether a woman fraudulently claimed to be a relative of a victim of last month’s Germanwings crash to get free flights to southern France.
Germanwings parent Lufthansa organised special flights for victims’ relatives after the March 24 crash in the French Alps, which killed all 150 people on board. Analysis of the black boxes suggested the co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, who had a history of depression, deliberately crashed the plane that was headed to Düsseldorf from Barcelona.
The Halterner Zeitung newspaper, based in the town of Haltern, which lost 16 high school students and two teachers, reported that a woman from western Germany flew to the region two times at Lufthansa’s expense after falsely claiming to be a cousin of one of the teachers.
Markus Tewes, a police spokesman in the town of Hoexter, said police are investigating possible fraud and the woman will be questioned after Lufthansa took the case to authorities.
The airline said it was looking into what appears to be a “regrettable isolated case”, but did not give details.
At the crash site itself, Germanwings and Lufthansa now have responsibility for organising the removal of the wreckage and clearing up any environmental damage, Lufthansa spokesman Boris Ogursky said.
Rescue workers and investigators at the crash site. Germanwings and Lufthansa now have responsibility for organising the removal of the wreckage and clearing up any environmental damage. Photo: Reuters
They will work with local authorities to draw up an environmental report and analyse soil samples to determine what needs to be done to repair damage, for example caused by aircraft fuel, he said.
Work at the site could take between six and 18 months to complete, Ogursky added. He had no comment on the potential costs.
The black box voice recorder indicated that Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials said, in what appeared to have been a case of suicide and mass killing.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said all the signs were “pointing towards an act that we can’t describe: criminal, crazy, suicidal”.
German prosecutors said searches of Lubitz’s homes had uncovered “medical documents that suggest an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment”, including “torn-up and current sick leave notes … one covering the day of the crash”.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin laid out the horrifying conclusions reached by French aviation investigators after listening to the last minutes of the Tuesday morning flight.
The Airbus A320 began to descend from cruising altitude after losing radio contact with ground control and slammed into the remote mountain, killing all 150 people on board.
He said the pilot, who has not been identified, left the cockpit, presumably to go to the toilet, and then was unable to regain access. In the meantime, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, a 28-year-old German, manually and “intentionally” set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountain.
Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz (inset) was said to have deliberately crashed the plane, based on black box recordings. Investigators also found documents about his medical history at his home. Photo: Xinhua
Robin said the commander of the plane knocked several times “without response”. He said the door could only be blocked manually.
He said the co-pilot’s responses, initially courteous, became “curt” when the captain began the mid-flight briefing on the planned landing.
The information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but Robin said the co-pilot did not say a word after the commanding pilot left the cockpit. “It was absolute silence in the cockpit,” he said.
During the final minutes of the flight’s descent, pounding could be heard on the cockpit door as plane alarms sounded. But the co-pilot’s breathing was normal throughout the whole time, Robin said.
“It’s obvious this co-pilot took advantage of the commander’s absence. Could he have known he would leave? It is too early to say,” he said.
Robin said just before the plane hit the mountain, the sounds of passengers screaming could be heard on the audio.
“I think the victims realised just at the last moment,” he said.
In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances said Lubitz showed no signs of depression when they saw him last as he renewed his glider pilot’s license.
“He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly.
Germanwing’s parent company Lufthansa said Lubitz joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training.
