Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
So it turns out that the German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had practiced
his suicidal descent on the outgoing flight. Why was he still in the cockpit?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/germanwings-co-pilot-practised-descent-move-previous-flight-andreas-lubitz
<snip>
The Germanwings co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a jet in the Alps in March practised entering the fatal descent settings on the outbound flight and ignored repeated attempts to contact him from both ground and air, investigators said on Wednesday.
A report on the crash by the BEA, France’s air accident investigation agency, showed that Andreas Lubitz had set the altitude dial on the Airbus A320’s autopilot to 100 feet five times while alone in the cockpit on the previous flight from Düsseldorf to Barcelona on 24 March.