AP | By Greg Keller & Elaine Ganley Posted: 03/25/2015 9:27 pm EDT
SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) — The first half of Germanwings Flight 9525 was chilling in its normalcy. It took off from Barcelona en route to Duesseldorf, climbing up over the Mediterranean and turning over France. The last communication was a routine request to continue on its route.
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| Airbus 320 |
Minutes later, at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Airbus A320 inexplicably began to descend. Within 10 minutes it had plunged from its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet to just over 6,000 feet and slammed into a remote mountainside.
To find out why, investigators have been analyzing the mangled black box that contains an audio recording from the cockpit. Remi Jouty, the head of France's accident investigation bureau BEA, said Wednesday that it has yielded sounds and voices, but so far not the "slightest explanation" of why the plane crashed, killing all 150 on board. A newspaper report, however, suggests the audio contains intriguing information at the least: One of the pilots is heard leaving the cockpit, then banging on the door with increasing urgency in an unsuccessful attempt to get back in.
"The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer," The New York Times quotes an unidentified investigator as saying. "And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer."
Eventually, the newspaper quotes the investigator as saying: "You can hear he is trying to smash the door down." more
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