Captain shouted ‘open damn door’

DUESSELDORF: The captain of a passenger jet that investigators believe was deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, shouted at the co-pilot to “open the damn door” as he made desperate attempts to return to the locked cockpit, according to a German newspaper said today.

French rescue workers hold Germany’s and Japan’s flags during a ceremony in tribute to victims near the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in French Alps on Sunday. Reuters

Duesseldorf, March 29

The captain of a passenger jet that investigators believe was deliberately crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard, shouted at the co-pilot to “open the damn door” as he made desperate attempts to return to the locked cockpit, according to a German newspaper said today.

French officials say the plane’s black box voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked the captain out of the cockpit of the Germanwings jet and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside.

They believe that the more senior pilot tried desperately to reopen the door during the flight’s eight-minute descent after he left to use the bathroom.

Germany’s mass-circulation Bild today reported that data from the cockpit recorder showed that the captain shouted: “For God’s sake, open the door”, as passengers’ screams could be heard in the background, moments before the fatal crash.

The pilot could then be heard trying to smash the door down with an axe, and then screaming to a silent Lubitz to “open the damn door”.

Bild said that before leaving the cockpit the captain could be heard explaining to his colleague that he had not had time to go to the toilet before they left Barcelona.

German prosecutors believe Lubitz hid an illness from his airline but have not specified the ailment, and said he had apparently been written off sick on the day the Airbus crashed on its route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf. — AFP