Mayday (2013) s16e07 Episode Script
Murder in the Skies
Aircraft debris litters the French Alps.
This is a tragic moment for Lufthansa, and it's really a dark day in our history.
People want answers quickly.
The fatal flight path of Germanwings 9525 seems inexplicable.
Completely under control, right up until the end.
- What was the reason for it? - Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
What's going on? Black box data points to a shocking - possibility.
- Lubitz! As a safety investigator, you think, "How could this happen?" Open this damn door! One so dark, it's almost beyond belief.
It's a sunny morning at Barcelona Airport in Spain.
After-start checklist.
Anti-ice.
- Anti-ice off.
- Rudder trim.
Rudder trim is zero.
The crew of Germanwings flight 9525 is preparing for departure.
Most of the 144 passengers are from Germany and Spain, drawn by the airline's low fares.
Germanwings was founded in 2002.
It's part of Lufthansa Group.
It always has been a low-cost carrier serving European routes.
A group of German high school students who've just finished a cultural exchange is on the flight to Dusseldorf.
Seat forward, please.
- Mama.
- Yeah.
Singer Maria Radner is travelling with her husband and young son.
The rising opera star just completed a string of performances in Spain.
I was very proud of Maria.
It made me so happy that she had chosen a profession that she truly loved, making music and using her beautiful voice to bring people joy.
Flight attendants, please take your seats for take-off.
Captain Patrick Sondenheimer is a former Lufthansa first officer who recently transferred to Germanwings.
That was a good opportunity to change from co-pilot, be upgraded as a captain and fly for Germanwings on the European route.
You have control? I have control.
First officer Andreas Lubitz, who has been with the airline for just over a year, will handle the flying.
As a co-pilot, you're learning every hour, every day, on every flight.
Cleared for take-off, 07 right, Germanwings 9525.
Take-off thrust.
It's a routine take-off on an ordinary Tuesday morning.
80 knots.
- Cross-check.
- V-1.
Rotate.
Just after 10am, Germanwings flight 9525 gets airborne.
Two, three minutes after take-off, they must have broken cloud and been climbing out into the sun.
- Autopilot on? - Autopilot on.
They're heading northeast over the Gulf of Lion towards the French Alps.
They should be in Dusseldorf in just over two hours.
27 minutes into the flight, the plane reaches its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet.
Marseille, Germanwings 9525.
Flight level 380.
Air traffic control in Marseille tracks the plane as it crosses France.
Good morning, Germanwings.
Direct to IRMAR.
Direct to IRMAR.
Merci.
Germanwings 9525.
IRMAR is a well-known waypoint in the French Alps, a point you over-fly when you do this route and then you don't talk to ATC any longer until they tell you to start your descent.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Four minutes later, the controller in Marseille notices something odd.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruising altitude you're cleared for.
Flight 9525 is descending without permission.
Well, if the air traffic controller sees an aeroplane leaving its assigned altitude, of course he wants to know why, because he hasn't given him clearance to descend.
So he, of course, wants to inquire, "Why are you descending?" Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
We've got a problem here.
Germanwings unresponsive, descending rapidly.
It must be a big surprise, seeing this aeroplane descending without any communication.
The plane is dropping steadily.
In just minutes, it's lost 10,000 feet.
Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? Are we landing already? It seems odd.
We shouldn't be.
The control centre is now in emergency mode.
Now approaching 25,000 feet.
So maybe they need help? They are in an emergent descent or something? Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
But, to help the crew, they need to have contact with the crew.
The Airbus is hurtling downwards at maximum operating speed, an astonishing 350 knots.
Germanwings, come in! Lima-Echo-X-ray, relay from Marseille.
I need you to try and contact Germanwings 9525.
What is their situation? And there was even another aeroplane that tried to relay air traffic control's requests.
9525, how do you read? But there was no answer.
The plane has dropped below 7,000 feet.
The towering mountains loom closer.
It's been ten minutes with no radio contact - - an eternity for controllers.
- He's powerless.
There's nothing he can do about it.
He just has to watch.
It must be absolutely devastating.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
We've lost contact.
The plane's now too low to be detected by radar.
Pull up.
Too low.
The aeroplane really crashed at a very high speed.
It was very important that police forces get access to the accident site immediately.
Rescuers race to find the crash site of Germanwings flight 9525.
At the same moment, the world's attention turns to these remote - peaks in the French Alps.
- The news about this plane crash spread very quickly on social media.
I mean, Twitter just lit up.
Nicola Clarke is a reporter for the 'New York Times'.
Bits and pieces immediately started coming out, people asking questions on social media almost simultaneous with the news alerts.
It takes an hour for searchers to spot the first remains of flight Hope of finding survivors quickly fades.
The first helicopters that flew over the site found just sort of an aircraft obliterated and, you know, just shattered into small bits and pieces.
It was pretty immediate that they concluded that there couldn't possibly have been any survivors.
Among the dead, 16 young students who will never return home to their families in Haltern, Germany.
The death of opera singer Maria Radner and her young family is another devastating loss.
You're overwhelmed by it.
You cannot think about anything other than the death of your children.
The enormity of the crash quickly sinks in.
It's the worst air disaster on French soil in more than three decades.
The aviation community needs an explanation.
Was it an incapacitation of the pilot? Was it a technical malfunction? What was the reason for it? Accidents like this take on a magnitude and a life of their own.
People want answers quickly.
The disturbing answers will come more quickly than anyone imagines.
The medieval village of Seyne-les-Alpes has become a makeshift operations centre for the investigation into the Germanwings disaster.
Arnaud Desjardin leads the investigation for the BEA, the French accident investigation agency.
Keep personal effects separate from the other debris, please.
We knew it was going to be a big job.
'Big job' meaning you would have to coordinate not only with Airbus and so on, but there was going to be a big political issue, a big international investigation.
If there's any sign of the black boxes, let me know.
Desjardin hopes his team can quickly recover the plane's flight recorders.
They could hold crucial evidence.
But combing through the wreckage is proving to be a heart-wrenching task.
The hardest thing, I find personally, to find is toys, little dolls or teddy bears, you know, that belonged to a child.
At BEA headquarters near Paris, Romain Bevillard joins the investigation.
We need the weather charts, now.
My part was to gather some facts on the accident itself, but at the same time, to coordinate with the judicial authorities, with our counterparts from Germany, from Spain.
It's standard procedure to check if weather conditions might be a factor.
In the Alps, the weather can change in an instant.
Southern Alps, 10:40am.
At this stage, you're just trying to understand - what went wrong and what happened.
- But on this morning, in this part of the range, flying conditions were nearly perfect.
Definitely not a weather problem.
The investigation is just hours old, but Germany's biggest airline is already under intense pressure.
This is a tragic moment for Lufthansa and it's really a dark day in our history.
The town of Haltern, Germany, is in mourning.
You can sense a state of shock all around.
It's pretty much the worst thing anyone could imagine.
The deadly crash comes just two months after a terrorist killing spree claimed 17 lives in and around Paris.
Many now fear that the terrorists have struck again.
One of the reasons that people speculated that this might be a terrorism event was simply the proximity to the attacks on 'Charlie Hebdo' newspaper that left really all of France in a state of shock.
Is this the radar track from air traffic control? Let's get it set up right away.
Investigators turn to radar data in the hope of discovering if a bomb blast is a possible cause.
Let's see how this plane was flying.
They study the flight path, noting altitude, time and direction.
What they find is a straight, controlled path downwards.
Completely under control, right up until the end.
It was looking like a normal descent.
It's just that it was not happening at, let's say, the proper time.
The data strongly suggests no bomb.
If we had a bomb on board the aircraft, we would probably have seen evidence of in-flight breakup and we may have lost radar information.
The wreckage confirms it.
Recovery crews are finding thousands of small pieces in a fairly confined area.
I don't think so.
A bomb blast would send large pieces falling over a much wider space.
This is not a bomb blast.
Investigators are desperate for a lead.
They wonder if the Marseille air traffic controllers have any information that might help explain the strangely steady flight path.
A very straight line.
The ATC controller is not an eyewitness but he may be the last person who talked to the crew or who could notice anything unusual.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruising altitude you're cleared for.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
I'd never seen that before.
So after they confirmed the waypoint, - you never heard from them again? - Not a word.
The controllers are just as baffled as the investigators.
They indicated to us that they tried to call the Germanwings flight crew 11 times.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
- And they never got any answers.
- Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? And the fact that the crew did not respond to ATC control was intriguing and it was really unusual.
Investigators struggle to understand Germanwings's mysterious descent into the mountains.
Have we got through to maintenance yet? They wonder if a mechanical failure might be to blame.
Something the crew could not control.
The A320 is one of the most popular planes in the sky.
- Anti-ice.
- Anti-ice off.
Investigators worry the Airbus may have a hidden flaw.
Rudder trim is zero.
If there is some kind of a technical problem, especially an aircraft like the A320, they wanna know as quickly as possible and get that resolved in order to eliminate that risk for the rest of the flying public.
One theory fits the strange flight path - loss of cabin pressure.
We got a problem here.
Germanwings unresponsive, descending rapidly.
When the aeroplane depressurises and the pilots do not get enough oxygen, they will suffer from hypoxia.
In other words, they will lose consciousness in a very short time, depending on the altitude of the aeroplane.
At flight level 380, they will lose consciousness within about 10-15 seconds.
Germanwings, come in! Hypoxia would explain the radio silence.
It would not be the first time it happened.
In 2005, a Boeing 737 ran into trouble en route to Athens.
Helios 522, do you read? All radio contact was lost after the crew became incapacitated by a lack of oxygen.
The pilots never regained consciousness and that flight ultimately crashed when the plane ran out of fuel.
Now investigators want to know if the same thing happened over the French Alps.
Hypoxia was a very likely possibility.
Investigators discover that Germanwings looked into a mechanical issue with the plane the day before it crashed.
Were mechanics concerned about something that could have caused a loss of cabin pressure? There was a problem, the left nose gear door.
They soon learn the answer is no.
Nah.
That wouldn't have anything to do with this crash.
Faulty landing gear door is not an issue at all because it's well outside the pressurised area of the aeroplane.
We saw that the aircraft was maintained according to a proper maintenance program.
V-1.
Rotate.
We were quite confident that the aircraft was in a good structural condition when it took off.
So far, evidence has ruled out severe weather and a mid-air bombing.
There are no red flags in the maintenance records.
Investigators are still in the dark.
We can't completely rule out hypoxia.
But before the first day of investigation is through, - the team has a new lead.
- We found it.
Searchers have found the cockpit voice recorder.
It's in bad shape, but if the data can be retrieved, it could answer a lot of questions.
There was hope that that recording would reveal something clear about what actually happened.
Crews continue the difficult job of recovering bodies from the mountains near Seyne-les-Alpes.
The local gymnasium is now a welcome centre for grieving families.
Air crash investigators, military police and fire fighters all work the crash site.
Their focus is finding the second black box, the flight data recorder.
Literally dozens of people looking.
We had difficulties in locating it.
But we were not going to leave this accident site without recovering the flight data recorder.
French prosecutor Brice Robin arrives on the scene to oversee a separate criminal investigation.
In France, it's a very different situation.
The French authorities automatically open two investigations, a technical investigation into the causes of the crash and a criminal investigation that ultimately seeks to determine whether there was any liability.
The two investigative teams must work side by side.
For now, neither can point to a cause.
There simply isn't enough evidence.
We cannot understand how an aeroplane, which was in perfect technical condition, with two experienced and trained Lufthansa pilots, was involved in such a terrible accident.
- Are we ready? - Could the cockpit voice recording provide new insights? Captain is mic one.
First officer is mic two.
I've worked for six years as a flight recorder specialist.
We may not be able to understand why everything happened but at least we have a good starting point.
After-start checklist.
Anti-ice.
Anti-ice off.
OK.
So the captain's running the checklists.
That means the first officer is flying.
- Rudder trim.
- Rudder trim is zero.
The checklists and taxi to the runway are all faultless.
- 80 knots.
- Cross-checked.
V-1.
- Rotate.
The take-off seems fine.
They hear no hint of any trouble.
12 minutes later, a flight attendant requests entry to the cockpit.
What you can hear there is clicks and clacks of switches being operated.
I'll let her in.
You can hear cockpit doors opening and closing.
So you have a lot of sounds that can be interpreted.
How delayed are we? - Some of the passengers are asking.
- 30 minutes.
We might make some of that up in the air but not much.
OK.
Do either of you need anything? I'm getting a bit hungry.
Would you mind bringing me some lunch? OK.
I'll be right back.
There was some general talking about the flight.
You could tell by the tone of their voices that it was like a normal follow-up of the flight.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Good idea.
I think I will go.
You can hear noises of a person going out of the cockpit and, from this point, the cockpit gets very quiet.
The captain's left the cockpit.
The first officer is alone in there.
It is the exact moment that the plane starts descending.
No voices can be heard in the cockpit for two minutes.
Then three.
Then four.
The captain is still in the bathroom.
The first officer is clearly on his own.
The cockpit microphone picks up the sound of the first officer breathing, evidence that the plane did not suffer a fatal depressurisation.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruise altitude you're cleared for.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
He's not starved for oxygen.
No loss of cabin pressure.
Why isn't he answering ATC? The strange silence in the cockpit mystifies investigators.
The search for an explanation (BEEPING) Investigators hear the captain trying to regain access to the cockpit of flight 9525.
The pilot could re-enter by pressing a buzzer.
Then the other pilot can watch on the camera if he has the right to enter the cockpit.
All he has to do is flip a switch to unlock the door.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) But there's no response from Lubitz.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
- What's going on? - Germanwings, do you read me? Come in.
- Why isn't he unlocking the door? - Lubitz! We could hear some breathing but, of course, you can breathe and be unconscious.
So, yes, the physical incapacitation was a possibility.
(BEEPING) The intercom's working.
We can clearly hear it.
The buzzer or the call, of course, is noticeable and it is distinguished to any other sounds in the cockpit.
So you know that somebody wants to talk to you or wants to enter the cockpit.
There's no doubt about that.
The plane is now well into its descent, speeding towards the Alps.
Why isn't he opening the door? Is he unconscious? The sound of the banging grows louder and louder.
Hearing the banging on the door is quite disturbing because it's not what you're used to listening to when you listen to CVRs.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
Too low.
At the end of the recording, we were, you know, still trying to understand what had happened.
There seems to be no evidence of a mechanical failure.
No terrorist group has claimed responsibility.
All investigators know for certain is that the first officer was alone in the cockpit when the plane hit the mountains.
Did he do this on purpose? There were really sort of one of two possibilities.
Either the pilot was incapacitated or that this was some kind of suicidal act.
They are forced to consider the unthinkable, that First Officer Andreas Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane.
Pull everything we've got on Lubitz.
Just three days into the investigation, the French prosecutor makes an unprecedented move.
He speculates publicly on the cause of the crash.
The most credible, the most likely explanation for us is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the cockpit door.
Though all the facts still aren't known, the prosecutor's statement paints a chilling picture.
It was something that was not only a shock to the public at large but, I think, particularly a shock to the aviation community and to the pilot community.
Within hours, several European airlines vow to make rule changes requiring two crewmembers in the cockpit at all times.
Hi.
Hello.
I'm calling from the Accident Investigation Bureau.
I'm wondering if you had just a few moments to talk about your colleague, Mr Andreas Lubitz.
The BEA's job now is to find out why a 27-year-old pilot with a bright future ahead of him might want to deliberately crash a passenger plane.
As a safety investigator, you think, "How could this happen?" OK.
Thank you very much.
I just need five minutes of your time.
.
.
Yes.
Hello.
This is Arnaud - Desjardin.
- OK.
I understand.
None of Lubitz's close friends or family will speak to them.
- How about you? Any success? - No.
No-one will talk.
There is a very strong culture of privacy in Germany and family members tend to be quite guarded.
Reporters visit his local flying club.
People there remember Lubitz as an unassuming young man who loved to fly.
He was a very calm, responsible man.
It's inconceivable.
In a Dusseldorf neighbourhood, the search for evidence intensifies.
The German police went to Andreas Lubitz's apartment and started looking for any and every bit of evidence as to what might have motivated him, what his mental state might have been.
An examination of Lubitz's personal life could answer the question now being asked around the world, "Was there a dark and dangerous alter ego hiding behind a calm exterior?" As the perilous recovery work continues in the French Alps, so does the search for the flight data recorder, a key piece of evidence that could reveal if the plane was deliberately flown into the ground.
In Paris, aviation investigators dig into Andreas Lubitz's background, his training and medical records.
OK.
Let's see what we've got.
They go back to Lubitz's basic training at Lufthansa's Flight Academy in September 2008.
Just two months into training, he broke it off.
He didn't return for nine months.
It was for medical reasons.
Depression.
The records show that Lubitz suffered a severe depression and was hospitalised.
Treatments included antidepressant drugs, psychotherapy.
And it emerged, as well, that he had actually had suicidal thoughts.
He later applied to resume his training, but needed a new medical certificate.
He was still on antidepressants in early 2009.
He had to provide a doctor's note.
Lubitz got the clearance from his psychiatrist.
He had a certification from his treating doctor that said that he was fully recovered.
He moved to the US and completed his pilot training there.
And after the end of his training, he ended up flying for Germanwings.
I'll let her in.
How delayed are we? Some of the passengers are asking.
Lubitz received regular medical exams from company doctors.
His last check-up was seven months before the crash.
The medical examiners that saw him all thought he was fit to fly and, as a matter of fact, he flew - safely for several years.
- 30 minutes.
Even on the day of the crash, Lubitz seemed perfectly healthy.
Do either of you need anything? I'm getting a bit hungry.
Would you mind bringing me some lunch? OK.
No problem.
I'll be right back.
A mental health problem might not necessarily lead to significant changes about their behaviour.
Professor Robert Bor is a specialist in aviation psychology.
In some cases, people do put out signs that they are feeling increasingly fragile and disoriented to the extent that they may be thinking of suicide.
But, there will always be those people who are planning and indeed plotting their own demise, suicide, but they will not communicate it to anyone else.
Digging deeper into Lubitz's records, they learn that in the months leading up to the crash, he seemed to take a turn for the worse.
He was convinced that perhaps he was losing his eyesight and yet nothing was found that was abnormal about his eyesight.
And it does also appear that he was becoming increasingly frightened, to the point of desperation, that his career was going to be disrupted.
He saw something like 41 different doctors, complaining of the same symptoms and same issues.
And it's not clear that any of them knew how many other doctors he was seeing, and it's not clear how many of them might have known that he was airline pilot.
Among the items found in Lubitz's apartment, investigators make a remarkable discovery.
- What have we got here? A recent doctor's note advising the disturbed pilot not to fly.
This note was issued just days before the crash.
Some of his treating physicians had recommended that he stop flying, perhaps enter a hospital, a psychiatric hospital.
Investigators wonder if Lufthansa knew how serious Lubitz's mental problems really were.
Airline representatives reveal they had absolutely no idea.
You've never seen this note? Lubitz consulted dozens of doctors.
Many of them wrote sick leave notes.
But not a single doctor ever contacted the airline directly to raise the alarm about the pilot's spiralling mental state.
And they are assuming that, when they provide these sick leave certificates, the co-pilot will himself forward those sick leave certificates to the authority or to his employer and therefore he will not be flying.
Then, after a ten-day search, one more vital piece of evidence is recovered from the mountains.
It was almost by chance that we found it.
Just going through all the debris and at some point, someone found the flight data recorders.
The hope now is that the FDR can paint a clearer picture of what the first officer was doing in the final moments of the flight.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Good idea.
I think I will go.
100 feet.
Right after the captain left, he set the altitude to 100 feet.
The data confirms that Lubitz was fully conscious throughout the descent.
Alone in the cockpit, he dropped the altitude to its lowest setting and cranked the speed dial several times until it reached maximum operating speed.
He was conscious to the very end.
He was actively controlling the plane.
Open the door.
It's locked.
Something's wrong.
Open the door! Lubitz, what are you doing? Let me in.
Open the door! Lubitz! Lubitz! Open this damn door! Get me the crash axe.
Open the door! There is always a crowbar or a - we call it an emergency axe - on the aeroplane to gain access to a fire if the fire is behind panels.
Come on! Open the damn door! Come on.
Lubitz! Lubitz.
Listen to me! The captain was, of course, desperate to get into the cockpit and he knew that this descent was continuing.
Open it! Come on! Open it! Damn it! Open this damn door! The cabin crew was watching them.
That must be horrible for them, knowing that they were going to die.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
Too low.
Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? I love you, my darling.
Every night when I go to sleep, I see a picture in front of my eyes.
The three of them are crashing into a mountain.
This image never goes away.
The terrifying cause for the loss of 150 lives has been confirmed.
But investigators are about to discover that the tragedy of Germanwings Flight 9525 has one more dark chapter.
Let's go back to the beginning.
Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf was Lubitz's second flight of the day.
His first was in the opposite direction, from Dusseldorf to Barcelona.
On that flight, the captain also left the cockpit.
From Dusseldorf to Barcelona, we realised that at some point, the co-pilot remained alone in the cockpit and, during this time, he made some altitude selections.
After the captain stepped out, Lubitz briefly set the altitude to 100 feet.
Those altitude selections went back to normal before the captain came back.
It was a dry run, a quick rehearsal for a tragedy just hours away.
- Everything OK? - Yes, everything's just fine.
This was no spur-of-the-moment decision.
This was a carefully planned murder-suicide.
He wanted to do that on purpose and he had planned it.
He had planned it to not only kill himself but 149 other people with him.
I have to say, it was as bad as learning about the death of my daughter.
It hit me very deeply.
Even to this day, I can't imagine it.
What exactly was going on in Lubitz's mind may never be known.
None of the doctors who treated him would speak to investigators.
But experts in the field agree, Lubitz was likely suffering from a psychotic depressive episode.
That person is no longer fully in control of all of their cognitive functions.
- Hello? Lubitz.
- (KNOCKING ON DOOR) This person loses a sense of reality.
They become very distracted and it's at that level that things are more concerning, particularly in aviation.
A psychotic pilot somehow ended up alone in the cockpit of a passenger plane.
One of the questions that, you know, still lingers out there is, when was the moment that Andreas Lubitz could have been stopped? When was the moment that that this disaster could have been prevented? And who could have done so? There were over 40 doctors who knew the medical situation of this murderer, and not one of them took measures to somehow prevent such a tragedy.
I love you.
And I think that that is the saddest part.
There was information available that could have actually prevented this accident.
Investigators conclude that the importance of personal privacy in German society likely played a role.
Doctors in Germany have a very good reason not to share any patient information.
In the German system, doctors can potentially face prosecution if they breach their patients' medical confidentiality.
They were relying upon him to select himself out of flight.
The fact that he didn't do this is both a failure of the individual pilot, but also a failure of the medical system.
In my opinion, there was too much weight given to doctors' confidentiality over safety, and I think we need to do a step in the right direction to have safety first and confidentiality afterwards.
In its final report, the BEA calls for clear rules for healthcare providers, rules that could help stop the next Andreas Lubitz.
We recommend to adjust the line between public safety and the protection of personal information.
They also recommend more stringent mental health evaluations for airline pilots.
We have put together a set of safety recommendations that makes the system less likely that such an event would happen again in the future.
The lessons learned could prevent a repeat of the Germanwings crash.
But for Klaus Radner, what's important now is keeping the memory of his loved ones alive.
Maria was a very caring person and I want this little family to be remembered how they really were - friendly, honest and happy.
This is a tragic moment for Lufthansa, and it's really a dark day in our history.
People want answers quickly.
The fatal flight path of Germanwings 9525 seems inexplicable.
Completely under control, right up until the end.
- What was the reason for it? - Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
What's going on? Black box data points to a shocking - possibility.
- Lubitz! As a safety investigator, you think, "How could this happen?" Open this damn door! One so dark, it's almost beyond belief.
It's a sunny morning at Barcelona Airport in Spain.
After-start checklist.
Anti-ice.
- Anti-ice off.
- Rudder trim.
Rudder trim is zero.
The crew of Germanwings flight 9525 is preparing for departure.
Most of the 144 passengers are from Germany and Spain, drawn by the airline's low fares.
Germanwings was founded in 2002.
It's part of Lufthansa Group.
It always has been a low-cost carrier serving European routes.
A group of German high school students who've just finished a cultural exchange is on the flight to Dusseldorf.
Seat forward, please.
- Mama.
- Yeah.
Singer Maria Radner is travelling with her husband and young son.
The rising opera star just completed a string of performances in Spain.
I was very proud of Maria.
It made me so happy that she had chosen a profession that she truly loved, making music and using her beautiful voice to bring people joy.
Flight attendants, please take your seats for take-off.
Captain Patrick Sondenheimer is a former Lufthansa first officer who recently transferred to Germanwings.
That was a good opportunity to change from co-pilot, be upgraded as a captain and fly for Germanwings on the European route.
You have control? I have control.
First officer Andreas Lubitz, who has been with the airline for just over a year, will handle the flying.
As a co-pilot, you're learning every hour, every day, on every flight.
Cleared for take-off, 07 right, Germanwings 9525.
Take-off thrust.
It's a routine take-off on an ordinary Tuesday morning.
80 knots.
- Cross-check.
- V-1.
Rotate.
Just after 10am, Germanwings flight 9525 gets airborne.
Two, three minutes after take-off, they must have broken cloud and been climbing out into the sun.
- Autopilot on? - Autopilot on.
They're heading northeast over the Gulf of Lion towards the French Alps.
They should be in Dusseldorf in just over two hours.
27 minutes into the flight, the plane reaches its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet.
Marseille, Germanwings 9525.
Flight level 380.
Air traffic control in Marseille tracks the plane as it crosses France.
Good morning, Germanwings.
Direct to IRMAR.
Direct to IRMAR.
Merci.
Germanwings 9525.
IRMAR is a well-known waypoint in the French Alps, a point you over-fly when you do this route and then you don't talk to ATC any longer until they tell you to start your descent.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Four minutes later, the controller in Marseille notices something odd.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruising altitude you're cleared for.
Flight 9525 is descending without permission.
Well, if the air traffic controller sees an aeroplane leaving its assigned altitude, of course he wants to know why, because he hasn't given him clearance to descend.
So he, of course, wants to inquire, "Why are you descending?" Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
We've got a problem here.
Germanwings unresponsive, descending rapidly.
It must be a big surprise, seeing this aeroplane descending without any communication.
The plane is dropping steadily.
In just minutes, it's lost 10,000 feet.
Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? Are we landing already? It seems odd.
We shouldn't be.
The control centre is now in emergency mode.
Now approaching 25,000 feet.
So maybe they need help? They are in an emergent descent or something? Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
But, to help the crew, they need to have contact with the crew.
The Airbus is hurtling downwards at maximum operating speed, an astonishing 350 knots.
Germanwings, come in! Lima-Echo-X-ray, relay from Marseille.
I need you to try and contact Germanwings 9525.
What is their situation? And there was even another aeroplane that tried to relay air traffic control's requests.
9525, how do you read? But there was no answer.
The plane has dropped below 7,000 feet.
The towering mountains loom closer.
It's been ten minutes with no radio contact - - an eternity for controllers.
- He's powerless.
There's nothing he can do about it.
He just has to watch.
It must be absolutely devastating.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
We've lost contact.
The plane's now too low to be detected by radar.
Pull up.
Too low.
The aeroplane really crashed at a very high speed.
It was very important that police forces get access to the accident site immediately.
Rescuers race to find the crash site of Germanwings flight 9525.
At the same moment, the world's attention turns to these remote - peaks in the French Alps.
- The news about this plane crash spread very quickly on social media.
I mean, Twitter just lit up.
Nicola Clarke is a reporter for the 'New York Times'.
Bits and pieces immediately started coming out, people asking questions on social media almost simultaneous with the news alerts.
It takes an hour for searchers to spot the first remains of flight Hope of finding survivors quickly fades.
The first helicopters that flew over the site found just sort of an aircraft obliterated and, you know, just shattered into small bits and pieces.
It was pretty immediate that they concluded that there couldn't possibly have been any survivors.
Among the dead, 16 young students who will never return home to their families in Haltern, Germany.
The death of opera singer Maria Radner and her young family is another devastating loss.
You're overwhelmed by it.
You cannot think about anything other than the death of your children.
The enormity of the crash quickly sinks in.
It's the worst air disaster on French soil in more than three decades.
The aviation community needs an explanation.
Was it an incapacitation of the pilot? Was it a technical malfunction? What was the reason for it? Accidents like this take on a magnitude and a life of their own.
People want answers quickly.
The disturbing answers will come more quickly than anyone imagines.
The medieval village of Seyne-les-Alpes has become a makeshift operations centre for the investigation into the Germanwings disaster.
Arnaud Desjardin leads the investigation for the BEA, the French accident investigation agency.
Keep personal effects separate from the other debris, please.
We knew it was going to be a big job.
'Big job' meaning you would have to coordinate not only with Airbus and so on, but there was going to be a big political issue, a big international investigation.
If there's any sign of the black boxes, let me know.
Desjardin hopes his team can quickly recover the plane's flight recorders.
They could hold crucial evidence.
But combing through the wreckage is proving to be a heart-wrenching task.
The hardest thing, I find personally, to find is toys, little dolls or teddy bears, you know, that belonged to a child.
At BEA headquarters near Paris, Romain Bevillard joins the investigation.
We need the weather charts, now.
My part was to gather some facts on the accident itself, but at the same time, to coordinate with the judicial authorities, with our counterparts from Germany, from Spain.
It's standard procedure to check if weather conditions might be a factor.
In the Alps, the weather can change in an instant.
Southern Alps, 10:40am.
At this stage, you're just trying to understand - what went wrong and what happened.
- But on this morning, in this part of the range, flying conditions were nearly perfect.
Definitely not a weather problem.
The investigation is just hours old, but Germany's biggest airline is already under intense pressure.
This is a tragic moment for Lufthansa and it's really a dark day in our history.
The town of Haltern, Germany, is in mourning.
You can sense a state of shock all around.
It's pretty much the worst thing anyone could imagine.
The deadly crash comes just two months after a terrorist killing spree claimed 17 lives in and around Paris.
Many now fear that the terrorists have struck again.
One of the reasons that people speculated that this might be a terrorism event was simply the proximity to the attacks on 'Charlie Hebdo' newspaper that left really all of France in a state of shock.
Is this the radar track from air traffic control? Let's get it set up right away.
Investigators turn to radar data in the hope of discovering if a bomb blast is a possible cause.
Let's see how this plane was flying.
They study the flight path, noting altitude, time and direction.
What they find is a straight, controlled path downwards.
Completely under control, right up until the end.
It was looking like a normal descent.
It's just that it was not happening at, let's say, the proper time.
The data strongly suggests no bomb.
If we had a bomb on board the aircraft, we would probably have seen evidence of in-flight breakup and we may have lost radar information.
The wreckage confirms it.
Recovery crews are finding thousands of small pieces in a fairly confined area.
I don't think so.
A bomb blast would send large pieces falling over a much wider space.
This is not a bomb blast.
Investigators are desperate for a lead.
They wonder if the Marseille air traffic controllers have any information that might help explain the strangely steady flight path.
A very straight line.
The ATC controller is not an eyewitness but he may be the last person who talked to the crew or who could notice anything unusual.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruising altitude you're cleared for.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
I'd never seen that before.
So after they confirmed the waypoint, - you never heard from them again? - Not a word.
The controllers are just as baffled as the investigators.
They indicated to us that they tried to call the Germanwings flight crew 11 times.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
- And they never got any answers.
- Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? And the fact that the crew did not respond to ATC control was intriguing and it was really unusual.
Investigators struggle to understand Germanwings's mysterious descent into the mountains.
Have we got through to maintenance yet? They wonder if a mechanical failure might be to blame.
Something the crew could not control.
The A320 is one of the most popular planes in the sky.
- Anti-ice.
- Anti-ice off.
Investigators worry the Airbus may have a hidden flaw.
Rudder trim is zero.
If there is some kind of a technical problem, especially an aircraft like the A320, they wanna know as quickly as possible and get that resolved in order to eliminate that risk for the rest of the flying public.
One theory fits the strange flight path - loss of cabin pressure.
We got a problem here.
Germanwings unresponsive, descending rapidly.
When the aeroplane depressurises and the pilots do not get enough oxygen, they will suffer from hypoxia.
In other words, they will lose consciousness in a very short time, depending on the altitude of the aeroplane.
At flight level 380, they will lose consciousness within about 10-15 seconds.
Germanwings, come in! Hypoxia would explain the radio silence.
It would not be the first time it happened.
In 2005, a Boeing 737 ran into trouble en route to Athens.
Helios 522, do you read? All radio contact was lost after the crew became incapacitated by a lack of oxygen.
The pilots never regained consciousness and that flight ultimately crashed when the plane ran out of fuel.
Now investigators want to know if the same thing happened over the French Alps.
Hypoxia was a very likely possibility.
Investigators discover that Germanwings looked into a mechanical issue with the plane the day before it crashed.
Were mechanics concerned about something that could have caused a loss of cabin pressure? There was a problem, the left nose gear door.
They soon learn the answer is no.
Nah.
That wouldn't have anything to do with this crash.
Faulty landing gear door is not an issue at all because it's well outside the pressurised area of the aeroplane.
We saw that the aircraft was maintained according to a proper maintenance program.
V-1.
Rotate.
We were quite confident that the aircraft was in a good structural condition when it took off.
So far, evidence has ruled out severe weather and a mid-air bombing.
There are no red flags in the maintenance records.
Investigators are still in the dark.
We can't completely rule out hypoxia.
But before the first day of investigation is through, - the team has a new lead.
- We found it.
Searchers have found the cockpit voice recorder.
It's in bad shape, but if the data can be retrieved, it could answer a lot of questions.
There was hope that that recording would reveal something clear about what actually happened.
Crews continue the difficult job of recovering bodies from the mountains near Seyne-les-Alpes.
The local gymnasium is now a welcome centre for grieving families.
Air crash investigators, military police and fire fighters all work the crash site.
Their focus is finding the second black box, the flight data recorder.
Literally dozens of people looking.
We had difficulties in locating it.
But we were not going to leave this accident site without recovering the flight data recorder.
French prosecutor Brice Robin arrives on the scene to oversee a separate criminal investigation.
In France, it's a very different situation.
The French authorities automatically open two investigations, a technical investigation into the causes of the crash and a criminal investigation that ultimately seeks to determine whether there was any liability.
The two investigative teams must work side by side.
For now, neither can point to a cause.
There simply isn't enough evidence.
We cannot understand how an aeroplane, which was in perfect technical condition, with two experienced and trained Lufthansa pilots, was involved in such a terrible accident.
- Are we ready? - Could the cockpit voice recording provide new insights? Captain is mic one.
First officer is mic two.
I've worked for six years as a flight recorder specialist.
We may not be able to understand why everything happened but at least we have a good starting point.
After-start checklist.
Anti-ice.
Anti-ice off.
OK.
So the captain's running the checklists.
That means the first officer is flying.
- Rudder trim.
- Rudder trim is zero.
The checklists and taxi to the runway are all faultless.
- 80 knots.
- Cross-checked.
V-1.
- Rotate.
The take-off seems fine.
They hear no hint of any trouble.
12 minutes later, a flight attendant requests entry to the cockpit.
What you can hear there is clicks and clacks of switches being operated.
I'll let her in.
You can hear cockpit doors opening and closing.
So you have a lot of sounds that can be interpreted.
How delayed are we? - Some of the passengers are asking.
- 30 minutes.
We might make some of that up in the air but not much.
OK.
Do either of you need anything? I'm getting a bit hungry.
Would you mind bringing me some lunch? OK.
I'll be right back.
There was some general talking about the flight.
You could tell by the tone of their voices that it was like a normal follow-up of the flight.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Good idea.
I think I will go.
You can hear noises of a person going out of the cockpit and, from this point, the cockpit gets very quiet.
The captain's left the cockpit.
The first officer is alone in there.
It is the exact moment that the plane starts descending.
No voices can be heard in the cockpit for two minutes.
Then three.
Then four.
The captain is still in the bathroom.
The first officer is clearly on his own.
The cockpit microphone picks up the sound of the first officer breathing, evidence that the plane did not suffer a fatal depressurisation.
Germanwings, Marseille.
Confirm what cruise altitude you're cleared for.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
He's not starved for oxygen.
No loss of cabin pressure.
Why isn't he answering ATC? The strange silence in the cockpit mystifies investigators.
The search for an explanation (BEEPING) Investigators hear the captain trying to regain access to the cockpit of flight 9525.
The pilot could re-enter by pressing a buzzer.
Then the other pilot can watch on the camera if he has the right to enter the cockpit.
All he has to do is flip a switch to unlock the door.
(KNOCKING ON DOOR) But there's no response from Lubitz.
Germanwings, this is Marseille.
Come in, please.
- What's going on? - Germanwings, do you read me? Come in.
- Why isn't he unlocking the door? - Lubitz! We could hear some breathing but, of course, you can breathe and be unconscious.
So, yes, the physical incapacitation was a possibility.
(BEEPING) The intercom's working.
We can clearly hear it.
The buzzer or the call, of course, is noticeable and it is distinguished to any other sounds in the cockpit.
So you know that somebody wants to talk to you or wants to enter the cockpit.
There's no doubt about that.
The plane is now well into its descent, speeding towards the Alps.
Why isn't he opening the door? Is he unconscious? The sound of the banging grows louder and louder.
Hearing the banging on the door is quite disturbing because it's not what you're used to listening to when you listen to CVRs.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
Too low.
At the end of the recording, we were, you know, still trying to understand what had happened.
There seems to be no evidence of a mechanical failure.
No terrorist group has claimed responsibility.
All investigators know for certain is that the first officer was alone in the cockpit when the plane hit the mountains.
Did he do this on purpose? There were really sort of one of two possibilities.
Either the pilot was incapacitated or that this was some kind of suicidal act.
They are forced to consider the unthinkable, that First Officer Andreas Lubitz locked his captain out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane.
Pull everything we've got on Lubitz.
Just three days into the investigation, the French prosecutor makes an unprecedented move.
He speculates publicly on the cause of the crash.
The most credible, the most likely explanation for us is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the cockpit door.
Though all the facts still aren't known, the prosecutor's statement paints a chilling picture.
It was something that was not only a shock to the public at large but, I think, particularly a shock to the aviation community and to the pilot community.
Within hours, several European airlines vow to make rule changes requiring two crewmembers in the cockpit at all times.
Hi.
Hello.
I'm calling from the Accident Investigation Bureau.
I'm wondering if you had just a few moments to talk about your colleague, Mr Andreas Lubitz.
The BEA's job now is to find out why a 27-year-old pilot with a bright future ahead of him might want to deliberately crash a passenger plane.
As a safety investigator, you think, "How could this happen?" OK.
Thank you very much.
I just need five minutes of your time.
.
.
Yes.
Hello.
This is Arnaud - Desjardin.
- OK.
I understand.
None of Lubitz's close friends or family will speak to them.
- How about you? Any success? - No.
No-one will talk.
There is a very strong culture of privacy in Germany and family members tend to be quite guarded.
Reporters visit his local flying club.
People there remember Lubitz as an unassuming young man who loved to fly.
He was a very calm, responsible man.
It's inconceivable.
In a Dusseldorf neighbourhood, the search for evidence intensifies.
The German police went to Andreas Lubitz's apartment and started looking for any and every bit of evidence as to what might have motivated him, what his mental state might have been.
An examination of Lubitz's personal life could answer the question now being asked around the world, "Was there a dark and dangerous alter ego hiding behind a calm exterior?" As the perilous recovery work continues in the French Alps, so does the search for the flight data recorder, a key piece of evidence that could reveal if the plane was deliberately flown into the ground.
In Paris, aviation investigators dig into Andreas Lubitz's background, his training and medical records.
OK.
Let's see what we've got.
They go back to Lubitz's basic training at Lufthansa's Flight Academy in September 2008.
Just two months into training, he broke it off.
He didn't return for nine months.
It was for medical reasons.
Depression.
The records show that Lubitz suffered a severe depression and was hospitalised.
Treatments included antidepressant drugs, psychotherapy.
And it emerged, as well, that he had actually had suicidal thoughts.
He later applied to resume his training, but needed a new medical certificate.
He was still on antidepressants in early 2009.
He had to provide a doctor's note.
Lubitz got the clearance from his psychiatrist.
He had a certification from his treating doctor that said that he was fully recovered.
He moved to the US and completed his pilot training there.
And after the end of his training, he ended up flying for Germanwings.
I'll let her in.
How delayed are we? Some of the passengers are asking.
Lubitz received regular medical exams from company doctors.
His last check-up was seven months before the crash.
The medical examiners that saw him all thought he was fit to fly and, as a matter of fact, he flew - safely for several years.
- 30 minutes.
Even on the day of the crash, Lubitz seemed perfectly healthy.
Do either of you need anything? I'm getting a bit hungry.
Would you mind bringing me some lunch? OK.
No problem.
I'll be right back.
A mental health problem might not necessarily lead to significant changes about their behaviour.
Professor Robert Bor is a specialist in aviation psychology.
In some cases, people do put out signs that they are feeling increasingly fragile and disoriented to the extent that they may be thinking of suicide.
But, there will always be those people who are planning and indeed plotting their own demise, suicide, but they will not communicate it to anyone else.
Digging deeper into Lubitz's records, they learn that in the months leading up to the crash, he seemed to take a turn for the worse.
He was convinced that perhaps he was losing his eyesight and yet nothing was found that was abnormal about his eyesight.
And it does also appear that he was becoming increasingly frightened, to the point of desperation, that his career was going to be disrupted.
He saw something like 41 different doctors, complaining of the same symptoms and same issues.
And it's not clear that any of them knew how many other doctors he was seeing, and it's not clear how many of them might have known that he was airline pilot.
Among the items found in Lubitz's apartment, investigators make a remarkable discovery.
- What have we got here? A recent doctor's note advising the disturbed pilot not to fly.
This note was issued just days before the crash.
Some of his treating physicians had recommended that he stop flying, perhaps enter a hospital, a psychiatric hospital.
Investigators wonder if Lufthansa knew how serious Lubitz's mental problems really were.
Airline representatives reveal they had absolutely no idea.
You've never seen this note? Lubitz consulted dozens of doctors.
Many of them wrote sick leave notes.
But not a single doctor ever contacted the airline directly to raise the alarm about the pilot's spiralling mental state.
And they are assuming that, when they provide these sick leave certificates, the co-pilot will himself forward those sick leave certificates to the authority or to his employer and therefore he will not be flying.
Then, after a ten-day search, one more vital piece of evidence is recovered from the mountains.
It was almost by chance that we found it.
Just going through all the debris and at some point, someone found the flight data recorders.
The hope now is that the FDR can paint a clearer picture of what the first officer was doing in the final moments of the flight.
If you need to go to the bathroom, now's your chance.
Good idea.
I think I will go.
100 feet.
Right after the captain left, he set the altitude to 100 feet.
The data confirms that Lubitz was fully conscious throughout the descent.
Alone in the cockpit, he dropped the altitude to its lowest setting and cranked the speed dial several times until it reached maximum operating speed.
He was conscious to the very end.
He was actively controlling the plane.
Open the door.
It's locked.
Something's wrong.
Open the door! Lubitz, what are you doing? Let me in.
Open the door! Lubitz! Lubitz! Open this damn door! Get me the crash axe.
Open the door! There is always a crowbar or a - we call it an emergency axe - on the aeroplane to gain access to a fire if the fire is behind panels.
Come on! Open the damn door! Come on.
Lubitz! Lubitz.
Listen to me! The captain was, of course, desperate to get into the cockpit and he knew that this descent was continuing.
Open it! Come on! Open it! Damn it! Open this damn door! The cabin crew was watching them.
That must be horrible for them, knowing that they were going to die.
Pull up.
Too low.
Terrain.
Too low.
Germanwings, come in.
Do you read me? I love you, my darling.
Every night when I go to sleep, I see a picture in front of my eyes.
The three of them are crashing into a mountain.
This image never goes away.
The terrifying cause for the loss of 150 lives has been confirmed.
But investigators are about to discover that the tragedy of Germanwings Flight 9525 has one more dark chapter.
Let's go back to the beginning.
Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf was Lubitz's second flight of the day.
His first was in the opposite direction, from Dusseldorf to Barcelona.
On that flight, the captain also left the cockpit.
From Dusseldorf to Barcelona, we realised that at some point, the co-pilot remained alone in the cockpit and, during this time, he made some altitude selections.
After the captain stepped out, Lubitz briefly set the altitude to 100 feet.
Those altitude selections went back to normal before the captain came back.
It was a dry run, a quick rehearsal for a tragedy just hours away.
- Everything OK? - Yes, everything's just fine.
This was no spur-of-the-moment decision.
This was a carefully planned murder-suicide.
He wanted to do that on purpose and he had planned it.
He had planned it to not only kill himself but 149 other people with him.
I have to say, it was as bad as learning about the death of my daughter.
It hit me very deeply.
Even to this day, I can't imagine it.
What exactly was going on in Lubitz's mind may never be known.
None of the doctors who treated him would speak to investigators.
But experts in the field agree, Lubitz was likely suffering from a psychotic depressive episode.
That person is no longer fully in control of all of their cognitive functions.
- Hello? Lubitz.
- (KNOCKING ON DOOR) This person loses a sense of reality.
They become very distracted and it's at that level that things are more concerning, particularly in aviation.
A psychotic pilot somehow ended up alone in the cockpit of a passenger plane.
One of the questions that, you know, still lingers out there is, when was the moment that Andreas Lubitz could have been stopped? When was the moment that that this disaster could have been prevented? And who could have done so? There were over 40 doctors who knew the medical situation of this murderer, and not one of them took measures to somehow prevent such a tragedy.
I love you.
And I think that that is the saddest part.
There was information available that could have actually prevented this accident.
Investigators conclude that the importance of personal privacy in German society likely played a role.
Doctors in Germany have a very good reason not to share any patient information.
In the German system, doctors can potentially face prosecution if they breach their patients' medical confidentiality.
They were relying upon him to select himself out of flight.
The fact that he didn't do this is both a failure of the individual pilot, but also a failure of the medical system.
In my opinion, there was too much weight given to doctors' confidentiality over safety, and I think we need to do a step in the right direction to have safety first and confidentiality afterwards.
In its final report, the BEA calls for clear rules for healthcare providers, rules that could help stop the next Andreas Lubitz.
We recommend to adjust the line between public safety and the protection of personal information.
They also recommend more stringent mental health evaluations for airline pilots.
We have put together a set of safety recommendations that makes the system less likely that such an event would happen again in the future.
The lessons learned could prevent a repeat of the Germanwings crash.
But for Klaus Radner, what's important now is keeping the memory of his loved ones alive.
Maria was a very caring person and I want this little family to be remembered how they really were - friendly, honest and happy.