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Mental Illness Theory in Question After News Germanwings Pilot “Painstakingly” Rehearsed Crash on Outbound Flight

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pilotThe Germanwings co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a jet in the French Alps rehearsed the fatal maneuver on the morning of the disaster, and had twice been refused medical papers needed to fly, investigators said on Wednesday.

The French BEA accident investigation agency said the co-pilot had five times set the autopilot to take the Airbus down to just 100 feet while the captain was out of the cockpit on the outbound flight to Barcelona from Duesseldorf.

But the brief twists of an altitude dial, mimicking those which crashed the A320 on its way back to the German city 2-3 hours later, would not have been noticed by passengers or controllers because they were quickly reversed and were masked by the fact that the jet had already started an authorized descent, the BEA said.

A preliminary report on the return flight that crashed on March 24, killing all 150 people on board, confirmed a growing picture of painstaking preparations carried out by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz.

“I can’t speculate on what was happening inside his head; all I can say is that he changed this button to the minimum setting of 100 feet and he did it several times,” said Remi Jouty, director of the French BEA accident investigation agency. (Read more from “Germanwings Pilot Rehearsed Crash on Outbound Flight” HERE)

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Alaska Commuter Air Carrier Suffered Operational, Training Flaws Before Crash

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Handout photo of a Cessna 208 that crashed in southwest AlaskaAn Alaska commuter airline routinely failed to inform pilots of shifting weather conditions and other hazards leading up to a 2013 crash in western Alaska that killed four people, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday.

The Cessna 208B, a single-engine turboprop, had been heading from Bethel to Mountain Village in deteriorating winter weather and crashed about a mile (1.6 km) southeast of St. Mary’s Airport in southwestern Alaska. The pilot and three passengers were killed, and six passengers survived with serious injuries.

Prior to the crash, Hageland Aviation Services Inc had failed to follow its own risk assessment plan, and on the day the plane went down the flight coordinators on duty had not been trained properly in those procedures, according to NTSB crash investigation documents released on Thursday.

“The hardest thing is to get this company to police itself,” Dale Hansen, a Federal Aviation Administration manager in Anchorage, told NTSB investigators. “If we’re not there to watch them, you know, we’re not really sure half the time if they’re doing it right.”

The airline, operated at the time as Era Alaska, which is now called Ravn Alaska, also failed to routinely inform pilots of weather conditions and other possible hazards, the preliminary report found. (Read more from “Alaska Commuter Air Carrier Suffered Operational, Training Flaws Before Crash” HERE)

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Alaska 737 Returns to Seattle After Napping Worker Awakes in Cargo Hold

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PlaneA sleepy Sea-Tac Airport worker who used the cargo hold of an Alaska Airlines 737 for a nap was awakened in a panic when the flight took off for Los Angeles, Alaska Airlines officials said.

Flight 448 departed at 2:39 p.m. but immediately after takeoff the pilot reported hearing banging from someone underneath the plane, the airline said in a statement.

The captain declared an emergency and returned to the airport, where a Menzies Aviation ramp agent was found inside the front cargo hold. The ramp agent was taken to Highline Hospital to be checked out and was later released.

The employee later told officials he had fallen asleep in the plane, according to a blog post by Alaska Airlines. Menzies contracts with Alaska to provide luggage services.

The worker, who was part of a four-person baggage loading team, was scheduled to end his shift at 2:30 p.m., according to the Airline. After loading the Los Angeles-bound plane, the team leader noticed one of the four employees was missing. He said he called and texted the worker, but didn’t hear anything back so he assumed the worker finished his shift and went home. (Read more from “Alaska 737 Returns to Seattle After Napping Worker Awakes in Cargo Hold” HERE)

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Germanwings Co-Pilot Reported Depression During Training

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BN-HQ596_gerpil_P_20150330103016Years before he was at the controls of a Germanwings plane that plunged into the French Alps, Andreas Lubitz told the airline he worked for that he’d had a bout with depression.

Lubitz, the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 who authorities accuse of deliberately crashing the plane, told his Lufthansa flight training school in 2009 that he had a “previous episode of severe depression,” the airline said Tuesday.

Email correspondence between Lubitz and the school discovered in an internal investigation, Lufthansa said, included medical documents he submitted in connection with resuming his flight training.

The announcement indicates that Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, knew of Lubitz’s battle with depression, allowed him to continue training and ultimately put him in the cockpit.

Lufthansa, whose CEO previously said Lubitz was 100% fit to fly, described its statement Tuesday as a “swift and seamless clarification” and said it was sharing the information and documents — including training and medical records — with public prosecutors. (Read more from “Germanwings Co-Pilot Reported Depression During Training” HERE)

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You’ll Never Guess Where a Man Was Found Hiding at the JFK Airport

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A flight passenger was found hiding inside the cockpit of a JetBlue airplane that landed in New York from the Dominican Republic early Tuesday after everyone else had gotten off the plane, authorities say.

The JetBlue ground crew found the 26-year-old New Jersey man hiding in the cockpit after the flight landed just before 2 a.m., according to the Port Authority. He was sitting by the window in the cockpit.

The man was a passenger who failed to exit the plane after it landed, according to JetBlue.

While he was being taken off the plane, the man opened an alarm door but he never made it through or got away from the airline workers escorting him off, authorities said. (Read more about the man being discovered in the cockpit of a plane at the JFK airport HERE)

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