What happened in the final moments before the ill-fated Germanwings Airbus A320 was intentionally crashed by the co-pilot in the French Alps?
Thanks to one of the black boxes recovered from the crash site, the investigators have ‘heard’ the details about the chaotic situation inside the plane just before the tragedy, but they may have never ‘seen’ what transpired inside.
Given the extent of destruction and the reports of the plane being ‘completely destroyed’ and ‘pulverized wreckage’, it was almost impossible to imagine that anyone could ever have recovered an intact cell phone that would show the footage captured from inside the doomed jet as it was sent plummeting down rapidly to slam into the French Alps by the co-pilot.
However, it has emerged that a cell phone memory card carrying the video of final moments before the crash has been found among the wreckage by ‘a source close to the investigation’, reported the Paris Match and German newspaper Bild.
According to the German newspaper Bild, the video’s authenticity is ‘unquestionable’, say reports.
Meanwhile, the French prosecutors have demanded the video to be handed over to the investigators, reported the BBC.
Brice Robin, who leads the criminal probe, said he was not aware of the video, reportedly seen by German and French newspapers, the BBC added.
The video is said to have confirmed what the investigators found from the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR).
The video purportedly shows a scene “so chaotic that it was hard to identify people, but the sounds of the screaming passengers made it perfectly clear that they were aware of what was about to happen to them”, says the Paris Match.
Then as revealed from the CVR, the video also shows people screaming – with shrieks of “My God” in various languages well audible.
Also heard in the video is the sound of heavy metallic banging, heard thrice, which confirms the recordings of the CVR according to which the pilot tried to open the door with a heavy object after the co-pilot locked him out of the cockpit.
According to the investigators, recordings from one of the black boxes that was recovered just a day after the crash – the CVR – revealed that one of the pilots who left the cockpit could not get in back there and his frequent knocks on the locked door went unanswered till the plane crashed in the French Alps.
Based on the recordings of the CVR, it is now understood that the 28-year-old co-pilot named Andreas Lubitz had intentionally crashed the plane as the pilot left the cockpit for a while.
